The Bailey Chronicles

Mario Kart Cake

2011-03-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

I did a cake for a friend's son's 6th birthday this weekend. I had a lot of fun focusing my creative energy on this new project. I really love how this one turned out, and have already had 3 new inquiries about Mario cakes for this month! Enjoy!

Yoshi's last desperate attempt to take the lead

but Mario has one last trick up his sleeve with a crafty slip of a banana peel

It's a close race, but car #6 wins ;)

Potty Dance

2011-01-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

I have been working with Bailey on potty training for quite some time. She simply refused to go in the tiny potty (she drug it around as her special chair instead of ever using it for it's real purpose) so Santa brought her a Dora potty seat to fit on the big toilets like a big girl. She bought into this concept immediately. I have been doing the "bare bottom" method after she made her first #1. So far so good. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like, runs around with nothing covering the bottom half showing off her tiny hiny LOL. We've had a couple accidents, but the moment they start she panics and we rush off to the potty to finish and fortunately nothing on the carpet. She has been doing so well with it, not bad for just turning 2! She has actually started running off to use it with out announcing the need to go, just takes care of it herself :) She still isn't fully trained, I give her pull ups for naps, bedtime, and car trips because well the other number is still a challenge, but she is definitely close! YAY Bailey!!! and hopefully we can say farewell to diapers soon!!!!

You Are Too Young

2011-01-06T19:36:00.001-08:00

Monkey always puts a smile on my face even when I am at my lowest. She swiped my mascara and did a mini makeover while I was cleaning the kitchen. I just love that baby :)

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In the Making of Christmas Cards

2010-12-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

I set us up with Portrait Innovations to get our pictures done for Christmas cards this year. I have decided after this experience that I will not do studio photos again. Or at least not for a while. Not because I didn't have some cute pics to choose from, but because of the following reasons: Even though we had an appointment we still had to wait on a studio room to become available... my 2 yr old was in good spirits upon arrival but by the time we finally had our studio she was in mid tantrum, she desperately wanted to play with the other children getting their photos taken... which is not appropriate when they are in the middle of a shoot, the location we went to was in West Plano and there were way too many uptight snooty Plano Moms in there that were hard to ignore, but really the biggest let down was that they didn't have an option for me to just buy the disc so that I don't have to purchase a million of the same image... I mean really who wants so many of the same photo??? Makes me think I should have my own studio room with cool lighting... how do I get one of those I wonder?? The cutest image was of a santa hand holding a plate of milk and cookies with Bailey in her xmas pjs reaching for them and looking up as if she was actually looking at Santa so that is the one that I have 40 prints of. But I also ordered xmas cards from them that have three images... the one I just mentioned, one of her crying because that is how the photo shoot went and it made me laugh, and one of our family where Bailey is looking super happy, John is looking cute and I, well I just look extra fat in the face because I was in an awkward pose and trying to see around Bailey so it brought out an extra chin... nice. But the whole point of dragging us all down to the studio was to get a descent family photo... I should have just had Candi do it! Want to see them??? You'll just have to wait until they arrive in your mailbox :)

We got home and I felt like Bailey needed some good creative fun for being dragged through that process. So I set her up with some of the leftover craft paints from her Olivia party and some card stock in her high chair to make some one of a kind Bailey hand painted Christmas cards. And I snapped some photos but she didn't mind this time because she was a busy little B painting away!

Bailey's Super Sweet 2nd Birthday Party

2010-12-11T17:53:00.000-08:00

For Bailey's 2nd birthday I went all out on her Olivia the Pig theme. I crafted some awesome piggy party hats, a really cool Happy Birthday banner... gosh I wish I had a cricut machine! and set up three tables.

Table 1: Nacho bar w/ queso, taco meat, RED salsa, RED and Black chips (and some normal ones), sour cream, jalapenos, guacamole. The nacho bar was mostly for the adults... a nice change after eating turkey all weekend. and for the kids we had PB&J sandwiches cut into star shapes with RED strawberry jelly, a fruit tray, and Pigs n' a blanket (all beef little smokies, so no pigs were hurt in the making of this buffet). Olivia Party hats each in its own special design, and awesome RED and WHITE striped cups with twisty straws for each of the littles to enjoy juice, water or milk.

Table 2: Present table with Bailey picture books for guests to view and RED and WHITE striped party bags. Party bags were filled with Olivia coloring pages printed out from the Nick Jr web page, play doh, Crayons with Olivia sticker that said thank you for celebrating Bailey's 2nd bday, and Olivia stickers. Guests were also encouraged to fill up their bags with treats from the dessert table.

Table 3: Dessert table! Three tiered Olivia cake featuring the episode where Olivia pretends to be a vet. On the top tier she is checking on Edwin the Black cat and on the bottom tier shows Ian, her brother chasing after Perry the dog who is wearing a nurses hat. The middle tier reads Rule of Life #38: Just because your dog looks cute in a nurses hat, does not mean he is a very good nurse. I did a custom topper of a Black painted 2 with a tiara and pig ears. She had two custom cupcake stands made out of Holiday hat boxes. Each cupcake was individually wrapped with custom cupcake sleeve made out of scrapbook paper. Found a free scalloped template on Cake Central and spent a night catching up on DVRs as I cut out the wrappers. Some of the kids were upset when they had to be removed for eating LOL. One set of cupcakes were RED velvet and the other set were BLACK and WHITE cookies and cream with fondant puppy and kitty toppers inspired by Edwin and Perry. I had two candy jars filled with WHITE chocolate covered pretzels with RED and BLACK drizzles. Two buckets of Popcorn from the Mom and Popcorn shop in Mckinney one was RED, BLACK, and WHITE cotton candy flavored for the kids and the other a Cinnamon Bun for the adults. And the two biggest hits were the giant Olivia Sugar Cookies and the RED, BLACK and WHITE whirly pops (kids went nuts for them!). Believe it or not I didn't have much left over except popcorn because the bags were excessive.

Some of the cool crafty party features aside from the Olivia Party hats, cupcake wrappers, and birthday banner were the toddler sized Olivia cutouts that I painted. I did 5 total each in her different wardrobes from the show. The one of her in her ball gown and tiara I cute the face out so the kids could pose as Olivia. I'll post those pics whenever Candi edits them. The kids really loved that! The backside was painted as her brother Ian so the boys could play too. Bree had created custom Olivia menus for each table and Olivia food labels... each one had a different one of Olivia's rules of life that applied to the food in some way. I had two kids tables in the food room with Olivia coloring pages taped to it for the kids to color as they snacked.... they loved that. And Candi had created her custom Olivia birthday outfit, along with another matching Olivia outfit that are the cutest.

and then after I had successfully gotten each kid on a sugar high I threw them all outside to run wild with 20 or so beach balls in the RED, BLACK and WHITE colors theme. It was organized chaos. We had close to 15 kids there of all ages and they played wonderfully together. Bailey is not around a ton of kids ever so she had the time of her life running around being a monkey. Only one injury... Skylar got poked in the eye, it's not really a birthday unless somebody gets poked in the eye LOL. But aside from that the kids really enjoyed themselves and it was fun to watch. I didn't set up any games because I didn't think I could hold any of their attentions for that long, so we were just set up for coloring, ball time, pics, food and presents.

Once it began to get dark it was too cold for outdoor play. We brought everyone in for the birthday girl to be sung to and to blow out her candle, to eat cupcakes which each child had a definite preference for which animal they would like to eat on their cupcakes, and a few tears where shed over the wrapper removals because they liked how pretty they were LOL. Bailey had figured out the whirly pops at this point and preferred them over a cupcake. Then we opened gifts! She received lots of crayons, coloring books, baby dolls and Olivia loot from all of her sweet friends! Bailey passed out at 7:30 that night and slept all night long. According to the other parents, their kids were out by the time they got home. Yes, I went overboard. But everything went exactly as I imagined. The kids were super excited about each piece the party had to offer and that made me happy. But I was most pleased with how super excited Bailey was throughout the party and how much fun she seemed to be having. Even though she will not likely remember this particular party I know that it was her best night that she's had of her life so far.... and that's how parties should be.

2!

2010-12-07T01:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Bailey,

On Thanksgiving day you turned 2 years old, and truly you are our biggest blessing to be Thankful for! We have experienced a lot together over the course of this year. You learned to walk fairly quickly after your first birthday, it was an overnight transition really. You took your first steps several different times throughout the day and by the next day you were walking all over the place like a pro. You could turn corners, stop regain your balance, pick things up and carry them... you just seem so fearless, cautious but fearless.

You overcame your fear of grass shortly after Easter. For the longest time if we tried to put you in the grass your legs would fly up over your head (you're very flexible) and you would try to climb up us like a monkey. We took you to the arboretum where the grass is pleasantly soft, bright green and cut short and after a while you began to warm up to it, eventually kicking your sandals off and running through the fields bare foot. And now you love playing in our backyard, running, and chasing bouncy balls and footballs. One day I spread out a king sized soft blue blanket in the grass and you rolled around snuggling that blanket and looked up at the clouds for over an hour in pure joy.

A blanket in the grass is your happy place and now you take great pleasure in noticing the things in the sky like the clouds, stars, and the moon which you think is a ball. You love balloons, but find them even more entertaining when you set them free and watch them drift up into the sky. We first discovered freeing the balloons after Ava's birthday party this summer, but more recently I took you to an arts festival where the flower shop gave you a balloon. When I tried to tie it to the stroller or to your wrist you cried very loudly because you wanted to watch it sail away. I thought for sure that losing your balloon would make you sad but you proved me wrong when you instantly cheered it on and tell it bye!

This year you have developed your own special relationship with Mr. Kitty. You have always been fascinated with him, but he never let you touch him. Now that you can walk, and even run, you have learned to keep up with him. He was pretty unsure of this for a while as I tried to teach you to pet him softly, but then one day I found you resting your head on him as he laid there and excepted your hugs. He actually seemed relaxed and it was then I realized how much he has bonded to you. He doesn't like many people, but you have always lit up when he walks by you and I think he likes that about you. His meow is one of your first words, it sounds identical to his and I have a hard time distinguishing which one of you it came from when I hear it. As you chase him throughout the house the two of you meow back and forth as if you are talking to each other. Now you feel you are the boss of him and you tell him to "GET DOWN!" when you seem him perched up on the bathtub. I am not sure why you yell that at him because I don't think I or Daddy have yelled at you or him in that way, but sometimes you just have to use your outside voice.

You have become my little helper in doing chores. Sometimes your help causes bigger messes but I always appreciate your interest in the things I do. You are a fast learner, I show you how to do a chore and you are quick to figure it out and take over such as picking up you blocks, or clothes, or crayons, washing the table or high chair, throwing trash away etc. Your favorite of these chores is sweeping the patio, this can keep you happily busy for quite some time. You may be getting your own Bailey sized broom for Christmas this year.

Daddy and I have noticed that you have many hiding places throughout our house for your many treasures such as remote control batteries, cell phones, sippies, pacis, shoes, toothbrushes, brushes, toothpaste, Daddy's contact lens cases, sunglasses, your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, etc. I have found these stashes tucked away in the drawers of our kitchen, in the sub woofer, under the chair cushion, in the clothes basket, in the bathtub, behind the blinds, in the seat of your push car and I am pretty sure there are some I have not yet discovered because if I search the house for your sippy and ask you where it is you wait until I leave the room before you some how locate it. I admire this strategy and mostly find it amusing. The fact that you remember where you hide your stuff must come from me because as you know you certainly didn't get that from Daddy. You help him look for his missing stuff all of the time, whether it was lost because of him misplacing something which is usually the case or if you hid it from us. One morning he lost his keys and ran frantically through the house trying to find them. He kept saying, "Where are my keys? Bailey do you have them?" and you promptly found your set of plastic keys and chased after him trying to give them to him. A big help indeed ;)

You are super cuddly and I love this the most! You climb up in our laps and hug our faces tight and will not let go for a while. As you do this you sway back and forth saying "ohhhh!" As I do the dishes you run up to me and hug my leg tight. As we grocery shop you pull my shirt so that you can pull me in for a hug as I push the cart and it's just so lovey of you! It makes strangers stop and coo at you because it is adorable of you. In the mornings we dog pile onto Daddy if he is still home and laying in bed when you wake up, and we do it at night when he walks in the door. You love talking to him on the phone when he drives home from work and as you tell him about your day in your special baby language you show him toys, share pacis, sippies and snacks with his picture on the id. When you hear a car door shut in the evening, or someone at the door your ears perk up and you freeze to listen more closely. If you hear nothing else then you look at me puzzled asking "Daddy?" and I say "no he's still working!" but if you do hear the keys in the door you scream "DADDY!" and run to the door. As he opens it you throw your paci at him (this is something you often do when you are excited) and tell him all about how much you missed him and the things you were up to in your baby talk.

Some of your favorite things are: you love Nick Jr and most of the shows on it but specifically Olivia, Yo Gabba, Fresh Beat Band (not Mommy's favorite!), and Little Bear. Your favorite books are Five Little Pumpkins, Once Upon a Potty, Hop on Pop and all of the vocabulary/picture books specifically the great big one that Andrea sent you for Christmas last year. Your favorite toys are definitely bouncy balls, a little wooden push cart from Ikea that Holly got you for your first birthday and the Laugh and Learn Fisher Price Puppy. Your favorite songs are the Itsy Bitsy Spider, If you're happy and you know it, most Incubus songs (that's my girl!), and a few of the 30 seconds to Mars songs. You love reality TV. You don't like leaving the house with out your blanky, your paci, your juice which you call Dee Daah which means juice please, and your crayons or a random stuffed animal. You love jumping on the bed or stomping around with happy feet. You love for your cousins to push you around in your stroller or in your push cars. You REALLY love Bella, I think your cousin Skylar might be jealous so try not to show too much favoritism ;) Your favorite fruits are fresh sliced apples, blueberries, raspberries and purple grapes. You eat raw carrots cherry tomatoes and sugar snapped peas, but I have a hard time getting you to eat any of your other veggies this year so I find ways to sneak servings into your foods. You love dips like salsa and guacamole, but you don't like ranch even though you want to like it because of it's dippability. You like pizza, which you call PEE-pa (Pee is in all caps because you say it in a high pitch), specifically spinach bacon artichoke Dee-light from Papa Murphy's or plain cheese. You love yogurt and cheese but hate milk. You do not like a lot of meats but just recently you've been giving chicken another chance, you'll eat turkey lunch meat and fish sticks. Your favorite games we play are Here comes the little mouse, Where's Bailey? as you hide behind the curtains giggling, and knocking on the doors and opening/closing them waiting for me to pop out around the corner to scare you. We are also quite fond of chasing you around the racetrack design of our kitchen/ living room. You are pretty strategic in this game as you check the reflection in the refrigerator to reveal our hiding spots or you change up the direction on us and sneak up behind us. When we scare you in play you come running towards us laughing with arms open ready for hugs. I find you delightful in every way! Happy birthday baby girl!!!

budding artist

2010-11-21T10:50:00.001-08:00

"On the paper please" is the phrase I find myself saying over and over again. Monkey seems to have an uncanny ability to locate a stray pen or highlighter within minutes of waking up. Having a husband in sales means never having a shortage of writing utensils. Originally when she would locate one of these treasures she would find the nearest wall and begin to create her masterpiece. This is not something that makes me mad because its just a wall and it can either be magic erased or touched up but we cant have our blooming artist expressing herself on whatever she pleases. So that means mean mommy would come along and take away her newly found toy and tell her no. This would turn into instant tantrum and it seemed like a never ending cycle until finally my montessory training kicked back in. She was genuinely upset that i wasn't praising her for how lovely her newest creation was turning out to be but obviously the wall is not appropriate coloring media. This time instead of prying the pen out of her tight little munchkin grip I simply found some paper and asked her to color on that and showed her the difference between right and wrong. She instantly dried her tears and listened to the lesson as I praised her art on paper and said coloring on the wall is a no no. For the last few days I have reminded her of the rule but have not had a single tantrum or slip up with wall art. Sometimes its hard to remember that two year olds can be reasoned with and not have to be sat in a time out or whatever punishment style you choose with endless heartbreaking tears and some times migraine worthy screams, but it is encouraging and even refreshing when they prove you wrong and show you they can listen and learn without the tears. And rules can be enforced without a battle. Its moments like these that show what a bright and receptive young lady she is turning out to be, and how proud I am of her.

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Really there is no excuse.

2010-11-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post some of these for a while, but it kept slipping my mind. These are park pictures taken the day after Halloween, which is why monkey's scalp is tinted green. It was John's day off and it was a beautiful sunny day so we decided it would be fun to take her to the park to play. Sadly this was probably one of last warm days we will have... maybe not, you never know with Texas weather, and even more sad this is the first time I have taken monkey to the park. Bad Mommy! Why have I not taken her before you ask?? I didn't have a car for the longest time, and I guess this summer we kept pretty busy. I did take her to the pool a lot, but I should have made a bigger effort with the park situation. I'm not sure why I didn't really think to do that this summer. Anyway I took her after Halloween and she loved it a lot of course. She's a big fan of the swings and after she went down the slide with Daddy she became a big fan of the slides as well. She would say "weeeeeee, weeeee, weeeeeee!!" all the way down the slide, much cuter than that annoying pig on the commercial... you know the one. Shortly after we got there, my buddy Holly called and met us there with EEEaaa (monkey's name for him). She was so surprised that he found her there. He even showed up with a flower to give her <3 awe.

was about to take a pic of monkey when... LOL

she adores him :)

Snapfish was doing a special around Halloween for buy 1 photo book get 2 free! I was so excited to receive my 3 books today! I know I take a gazillion pics of my baby, but I really don't have many that are printed. So you can imagine how happy they make me.

I've been doing a lot of crafts lately to get ready for her 2nd birthday, can't believe it's already here! We are doing an Olivia themed party. Who's Olivia? She's a cute little pig that has her own series of books and a show on Nick Jr. Monkey loves her, and loves the fact that she has a black cat, and a brother named Ian. So Olivia is her party theme, and for some reason she's not extremely main stream like Dora and Yo Gabba. It's very difficult to find pre-made party themed Olivia items unless you go on etsy, which can be spendy, so it's a DIY event I guess. The good thing is is that her colors are red, white and black and with Christmas around the corner it makes finding the color theme pretty easy with lots of wonderful choices! Candi is going to make her a custom outfit, and wouldn't you know they are either sold out or discontinued on most Olivia fabrics. Luckily I scored a FQ on eBay for $7.95, the next day it was selling for over $20... crazy. Still though $7.95 for a quarter of fabric... robbery I tell ya! I have decided not to do her party on Thanksgiving this year, even though her actual birthday falls on it. For one it's too much to try to coordinate in one day, for two I would have to do it early in the morning if I expected anyone to come and it seems too early to chow down on cupcakes and candy and then sit down to a super filling meal. The date is not totally set yet, but I'm thinking the Sunday after Thanksgiving will work best for everyone involved. So until then I will be meticulously crafting, cooking, planning, cleaning, decorating, shopping, etc.

I tried it, and now I like it!

2010-11-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about Yo Gabba, but they seriously have a song that can apply to almost all aspects of life. Here I am minding my own business and then something is said or done that pops one of their little tunes into my brain. Brainwashed I tell ya!

As a homemaker for the past several years I have been trying to broaden my scope of recipes. Cooking is not something I fully enjoy doing. I don't mind doing it, but it seems like a lot of effort. I think between cooking and cleaning I honestly get more enjoyment out of cleaning. However, with that being said, I am still pretty good at cooking, I just don't want to do it. It's one of those things I have forced myself to keep after in hopes of one day truly enjoying it... maybe. The good thing is my husband likes just about everything I make and has full confidence in my ability to recreate recipes from meals we have tried. He is also willing to try anything and is not incredibly picky.

If I choose to cook I usually opt for the easy way out. A few ingredients, one pot dishes, crock pot options, etc. Last year my cousin Jennifer turned me on to this blog, A Year of Slow Cooking, and it has shown me many easy options to just throw in the pot and forget about. A few weeks ago she made a post stating, "stop, look no further. Hands down best Brussels Sprout recipe in the world!" Brussels Sprouts?! Ok, so I've only tried them once as a kid and I thought they tasted the way feet smell. But to their defense I used to be an incredibly picky eater so despite my previous experience with them and their bad reputation I decided the recipe looked easy enough to give it a try.

What you'll need:

1 lb brussels sprouts

1 tbs of Dijon Mustard

3 tbs of butter

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 c water

The Directions.

Use a 2-quart slow cooker. Wash and trim the ends off of each Brussels sprout, and cut in half. Toss into the cooker. Add butter, mustard, salt, pepper, and water. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours, or on high for 2 to 3. Stir well to distribute the sauce before serving. The sprouts on the edge get brown and bit crispy on the outer edge. This is a good, and not something to worry about!

I cooked them, and they are amazing. In fact, they are going on the Thanksgiving menu! John loved them too, which this was his first time for trying Brussels sprouts. I encourage everyone to give them another chance, they could turn out to be a new family favorite! I had no idea I liked them, and am a little sad that I've been missing out on them my whole life.

Halloween

2010-11-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

On Halloween Bailey was an Umpa Loompa, thanks to cousin Annie for lending us her costume complete with make up, hair color and shoes from last year :)

Bailey didn't mind me spraying her down with green hairspray, guess she's used to it with the detangler every night. But when it came to the make up she was more than happy to help. Once she realized stuff came off when she touched her face she was all about rubbing her eyes and cheeks. So quickly after it was applied it just started looking like her face was super dirty LOL. I snapped a couple pics and then we took what was left of it off of her.

I had a budget costume of a witch. Originally it was just going to be a witch hat, but then I found cool eyelashes and black light make up when I was picking out a Halloween pale for Bailey yeah. I never did find a black light to see the overall effect :( maybe next year?

Our friend Ian came to trick or treat with us. He was a cute little hobo, and was totally ready to put on the charm to get some candy.

John got to fulfill his life long dream of being a ghostbuster. Looks a lot like Ray with his haircut hehe maybe I'll be Zuul next year and Bailey can be Slimer.

This is Bailey's first "real" Halloween. She got to dress up last year and all, but she was just a tiny so we didn't Trick or Treat or anything. And last year I never had a single Trick or Treater so I was a little bummed I couldn't show her off. This year we had a couple little groups of kids come to the door, so their is hope for better future turn outs! Bailey didn't quite understand what we were up to at first with the bucket and the costume...

But once she realized that she got to ring doorbells, knock on doors, talk to strangers, and get candy, she quickly became a pro. I tried to teach her in advance to say Trick or Treat, but she just laughed every time I said it to her.

Even though we only went to a handful of houses... no more than 8 I'd say, our neighbors were more than generous to give us candy by the fistfuls. Most of them hadn't seen a Trick or Treater all night and were more than happy to unload their candy on us.

That night Bailey and Ian crashed early, so Holly and I carved up our pumpkins. Better late than never! I did the haunted house, and Holly did a spider in a web... her candle was going out in hers so this was the best pic I could get of it (I liked how the spider's eyes were glowing). We also watched the movie Paranormal Activity with John, the first one, I hear the second one is WAY more intense. All three of us are total scaredy cats when it comes to ghosts and scarey movies... so it was interesting haha, we probably couldn't handle the second one. It took everything I had to resist playing some mean jokes on John later that night when we were going to bed, but I resisted and let him freak out on his own doing.

Pre-Halloween events

2010-10-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

I have been looking forward to the Sachse Pumpkin Prowl for quite some time. It was featured in our local newsletter as a free event for Halloween set up like an Easter egg hunt but with mini pumpkins. This was to happen on Saturday evening, the day after we returned home from Colorado. I had planned to dress Bailey up and meet a bunch of friends w/ kids around Bailey's age to hunt for mini pumpkins together. But mother nature had other plans and rained us out. Sadly the event was cancelled :( maybe next year. I ended up shampooing the carpets instead... not nearly as fun or photograph/blog worthy.

My sister invited us out to to Ghouls on the Lawn in Mckinney last minute, another fun pre Halloween event. So I dressed Bailey up in a custom vintage Cowgirl outfit that Candi made so she could see it on her, plus I need to make some adjustments to the umpa loompa costume that cousin Annie loaned us (I seriously can't wait to see her in it!). I have some cowboy boots that my mom bought me when I was Bailey's age when we were moving to Texas, so it completed the outfit (but she took them off on the car ride home so they are yet to be photographed on her). Bailey and I would be arriving late, because it took me a minute to figure out Bailey's last minute "Jessie" costume and a last minute vampire costume for myself. By the time we got close to the event traffic came to a stand still. Then the emergency vehicles came roaring down the street. Rats, a wreck. They block off and evacuated the street that I need to be on. We had to turn back :(

The Carminati's were good sports about it and met us at Fuddruckers in time for Johnny to get off work. They said they were feeling worn out from the event since they had been there for about an hour and a half. It may have been for the best because Bailey did not like seeing her favorite people in weird hair and clothes. She may have hated seeing people in full zombie costumes roaming the streets. We got home and I took at home pics instead. Hoping that these Halloween events will start working out for us sheesh!

These are her cool Halloween Skeleton Snuggie PJs :) the bones glow in the dark... and I adore the bow tie and heart!! She really digs them!!! I am posting them because they are also kind of costume-like and she wants to wear them all of the time.

Did I mention I love Colorado?

2010-10-25T02:23:00.000-07:00

seriously I have over 200 pics that I love from Colorado so picking just a few favorites for the blog is tricky business. These are just some scenery and pumpkin patch photos I took that need to be blogged about because you know how I love Fall :)

We were a couple of weeks too late to get awesome sunflower pics, but I found the dried ones pretty interesting anyways. Just look at all the seeds in them! And the trees were soooo beautiful! I swear they would glow they were so rich with color. Some of the trees were full of deep reds and other in golds and bright yellow with just a few green ones. Absolutely breathtaking with a mountain backdrop full of evergreens.

We would love to make this an annual trip since John is always in need of a vacation before the holiday hit and I can't think of a better place to celebrate Fall than in Colorado. We are thinking of looking in to finding a cabin to rent since it would be an off season for tourists it might be pretty affordable. If so, we'd love it if cousins and friends wanted to join us next time ;)

Colorado

2010-10-25T02:02:00.000-07:00

The timing of Bailey's sickness fell in an awkward spot. It was right after the wedding rush, and right before a planned trip to Colorado to visit my friend Jen. Jen just had her second baby a few weeks ago, and John was due for vacation before the holiday block out. We would have cancelled if Bailey still seemed sick but she had been looking pretty perky for several days and didn't have any lesions left in her mouth. We waited one extra day before making our trip. We drove, overnight so Bailey could sleep most the way. And really if you have never tried mobile video, it is amazing! As soon as Bailey seemed over sitting in her car seat I popped Yo Gabba in and she was instantly hooked. The car suddenly became more tolerable for her, and it even helped put her back to sleep. I borrowed it from a friend but now I want I want I want!!!

When we arrived it took about a day and a half for Bailey to get adjusted. I was a little worried we might have to leave early because I didn't want to stress Jen out with a crazy toddler. But I had a heart to heart with B and explained what was happening and we took a long cuddly nap together and when she woke up she was totally at ease with the situation and started to enjoy herself.

Several months ago when Jen brought her baby boy Loyal to visit us in Dallas, Bailey didn't seem to be in love with him. But this time she was very entertained. Maybe it's that he's one now and more relatable... who knows. She was also in love with Loyal's Daddy. He is incredibly tall, and has fun hair, and quiet low voice. Every time he spoke she would look at him in awe and admiration. She was curious about the newborn Zenea, but wasn't having it when I would try to hold her. We hit up two spots for photo opps, one at a pumpkin patch in Longmont, and the other at a park in Bolder.

Sick

2010-10-25T01:30:00.000-07:00

One of Bailey's special sick day treatments was her very first Starbucks drink. No I didn't feed my 2 year old coffee, I got her one of the Strawberries and Cream Frappacinos. Really she wouldn't eat much so I always offered her a large variety of things to choose from, this happened to be her favorite... the Gogurt came in second.

and as she started to feel better I gave her her first bowl of cereal. I give her cereal all the time for snack but haven't dared to give her an open bowl of liquids. She has really seemed to get the hang of using forks and spoons w/o a problem and have shared many of my morning bowls of cereal so it seemed to be a good time to let her try something new.

this made her happy! and another way for me to get milk (she hates milk) in her diet.

The wedding

2010-10-25T01:12:00.000-07:00

Barbara and Jedi's wedding was beautiful of course! Still waiting to see the photographer pictures but until then I have just a couple wedding day pics. They had a vintage carnival theme going on w/ a photo booth, tons of kooky props, and an open bar which I am sure made for some interesting photos. Genius! This photobooth would print out double of the photos, one for you to keep and the other for you to write the couple a message on for them to use for their guest book! I didn't bring my camera because I didn't want to mess with it since I was in the wedding as a bridesmaid and their would be plenty of pics of me and the Bride. I absolutely love her bridal party! Every time I am around those girls they make me laugh, it really was a great day.

John and I getting drinks after the ceremony

Photo booth pics...

We may have had a few drinks at this point

Because of some room debacles, the wedding was delayed. Which meant that we couldn't do the scheduled photo shoot before the wedding. We waited until afterwords, and by the time we were done everyone was ready to get into their comfies and relax. We tried to dismantle the Bride.... these are a couple of the bridesmaids trying to remove Barbara's hair extensions.

I remember at one point, Erin, said something about the stylist weaving them into her hair and that they were impossible to remove. Poor Barbara was almost in tears as they tried to pull them out of her hair. and I am snapping away on my cell LOL. They asked for my help and I quickly realized they just snap out. awe poor Barbara!!

It was not to long after this point when I received a phone call from my sister saying Bailey was sick she seemed to have a soar throat and wasn't eating so we should come get her. We didn't get a chance to hang around for the after party.

I dosed Bailey with some Motrin when we got home and she ate an entire Gerber Graduates macaroni meal, some yogurt and some snacks. I had hoped that she was already feeling better, but around 6 am I heard some pathetic little sick whines over the baby monitor and went to check on her. I found her burning up and red faced. I stripped her down and took her temp... the thermometer climbed up to 103.3 before she wiggled away from it. YIKES B!!! First time she has been truly sick. I dosed her again and we rushed off to the doc. They said she has herpengina or coxsachievirus... two very unfortunate names I must say! The only meds to take for this is IBU profen for pain and fever, and mixture of half Benedril and half Malox to coat the lesions in her throat. This mixture must have tasted awful because she would purse her lips tightly and hide her face when it came time to take her meds. And if I managed to get it in her mouth she would gag and sometimes throw up. It took her about five days to get over it. She spent those five days laying on me, and if I dared to get up for any reason she would cry the saddest cry I have ever heard. But happily she is back to normal!! :D

YAY JOHNNY!!!

2010-10-07T00:41:00.000-07:00

Our exciting news here lately is John got his big promotion!! Three months ago he was promoted to be a District Financial Manager, which is still considered a test position. But even though he just took on a new role he was still offered to become the General Manager of one of the stores in our district! Unfortunately it is not very close to the house, about an hour commute, but this is the position he's been reaching for for the last three years and now he gets his shot! Even with his short stay in the last position he was awarded District Financial Manager of the year at a conference he is currently attending! We are so fortunate that he has a job he loves so much, and so excited about this new position. Such a huge blessing!!!

We have a busy couple of weeks coming up. This week is wedding week! and then John will be taking a vacation before holiday block kicks in so we'll be off to Colorado to visit my best friend Jen and her new little one, and her other little one's first birthday! Can't wait! And then I will be cramming in Halloween events. Bailey will be an umpa loompa this year, costume borrowed from her second cousin Annie who rocked it last year hehe. Stay tuned...

"She's Got Designer Shades Just to Hide Her Face...

2010-09-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

... she probably thinks that she's cooler than me." -Mike Posner

Bailey seems to LOVE her accys. Lately she has honed in on sunglasses. Ashley had about three different shades in the boxes of clothes that she dropped off a couple of weeks ago. Bailey has sunglasses but has never shown any interest in wearing them for longer than a minute. But then randomly she started loving them. She wants to wear them during diaper changes, when she gets out of her bath, gets her hair combed, her teeth brushed and of course she shares the love by putting them on us too. The other night she had been wearing them as we were getting her ready for bed, and she some how smuggled them with her to the crib. About thirty minutes after laying her down she starts crying loudly. I walk into her room to check on her, flip on the light, and to my surprise she was standing in her crib with her sweet pj's, her favorite blanky in one arm, water bottle in the other, paci in the mouth and her sunglasses as she is crying for me. I had no idea she even had them with her so I was dying laughing and called John in to laugh too. I think the sunglasses made her room too dark and she freaked out a little LOL. I hope I never forget that image!! She was the cutest!

Getting ready for Fall

2010-09-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's Texas, and it's hot outside and probably will be for a while. But every now and then the weather changes and the clouds roll in, dropping the temps and it is wonderful. I just love Fall. Easily my favorite time of year in Texas. The one time of year where it actually feels good to be outside. The summer here is so hot it can melt your flesh off. I remember marching band in High School. We would practice after school on the black asphalt, and it would be so hot that at times the soles of my shoes would begin to melt and stick to the ground... or maybe it was the ground melting, IDK the point is it can be unbearably hot. The winter is not much better. Our humidity is so high that when it's cold it physically hurts at times. I am sure you have guessed that I am not much of an out doorsy type of person. It's not that I don't like out doors activities, I just don't like the weather in Texas... except in Fall. In Fall it is perfect. The air is crisp, only a light jacket or sweatshirt is ever needed. The wind is subtle, the trees are beautiful the colors rock, the scents of pumpkin spice and apple spice are so warm and inviting. I just love it, especially outdoors! I have noticed more and more Fall clothes in the stores and Fall decor and it makes me happy! My pumpkin spice frapps are back at Starbucks. Life is good. Couldn't resist the urge to get Bailey a new fall outfit imagining the pumpkin patch this year at the Arboretum :) Near Wylie they do a pumpkin hunt, much like an eater egg hunt but with mini pumpkins. It's free and meant for kids 10 and under, I was so excited when I discovered this event! They also do a Fall fest with food and art and music, which is also very exciting to me!! I plan on bringing Bailey and a camera to as many Fall events as I can because I know she'll love it as much as me :D

Summer

2010-09-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

September 2010

Aside from playing with Bailey and helping her learn the valuable lessons in life such as the dog goes woof woof and the duck goes quack quack, I have been keeping pretty busy.

Bailey stole John's cup and she was looking pretty adorable

Bree and I had several busy weekends with baby shower cakes, wedding cakes and birthdays. I also started going to a cooking class, I think I mentioned that in an earlier post. It's been lots of fun to bring friends to, to cook and drink and be silly, a good night out away from family life.

Chef Craig, we love him :)

I have done some painting classes that are also a great girls night out, bring your own wine and they supply the rest. John and I have cooked out several times with friends and family and gone to several cook outs. I take Bailey to the pool with her cousins and her Aunt Candi. She loves the pool!

another stolen drink... what's with this kid LOL

I was so close to enrolling in Le Cordon Bleu culinary school for baking and pastry but sadly classes filled up too fast. I did my interview and testing, which proudly I scored almost perfect scores on all three sections, I thought for sure I would have failed the math section. To my surprise they offered to hire me in as a tutor, didn't see that one coming. I will aim to start in February if life permits me to. In the mean time I am trying to research scholarships to get some of the costs cut down, it would sure make it easier! So yeah if you know anybody that is in tune with scholarships and free college money let me know, I am in the market! The whole Mommy's go back to school thing only applies to single mom's struggling to make ends meet, very strict salary restrictions... but I know their is a ton of free money out there for school I am just having trouble locating it.

and then speaking of school, I had my ten year high school reunion last weekend. Wow really?? Am I that old? I don't feel that old, but half the people that I reconnect with are starting to look aged, which makes me wonder what I must look like through other people's eyes. All mommied out and kinda tired. yeah, I probably do look a little old. Oh well, I can't complain, life has been pretty good to me lately. It took me ten years to find a real passion... there are lots of things that interest me but I think I really enjoy this. I just got finished this last weekend with doing mini cakes for Barbara's bridal shower. I did 20 of them, as my own personal project and contribution to the shower planning. I also created the cupcake stand that they are displayed on. It was a fairly easy DIY project. I bought a couple of styrofoam disks from Michaels, some vintage scrapbook paper, a cheap charger and a couple of cheap vases, and a can of glossy spray paint. Covered the styrofoam in the scrapbook paper, spray painted the charger and lined it with scrapbook paper, and spray painted the vases. Then assembled with hot glue. Easy and cute, cost about $25 in supplies, the priciest part being the styrofoam.

I put in a ton of time on these mini cakes! OMG I couldn't believe how long these took me! I did the flowers and bows ahead of time, they needed to dry. I figured the dots and monograms would be pretty simple and that the hardest part would be covering them in fondant. Luckily it was good fondant weather, a cold front had come in so it wasn't all hot and humid Texas summer weather like usual which can cause the fondant to tear or get air bubbles and make you want to throw your cake on the ground after several failed attempts. No it was great weather, the fondant went on easy and smooth, no tears or re-dos. It was the crumb coating and buttercreaming that was the real nightmare. I did two flavors, pink champagne and red velvet. The pink champagne was pretty cooperable, it was the red velvet that chose to hate me. I don't have a mini cake pan, cupcake pans have a slope so that doesn't give it the nice straight edge, I had to use a sheet pan and then cut the cakes out with biscuit cutters. Since they were cut out the sides were all crumbly which made it impossible to crumb coat. I had to do everything in many cycles, with freezing the cakes in order for them to be stiff enough to crumb coat* and not fall completely apart (thankfully that didn't happen because I had just enough for 10 cakes in each batch and needed to make 20 total), freezing them again in order to buttercream them so they wouldn't look all lumpy, and then hot knifing** them to smooth out the surface... and then rolling out fondant and covering, and finally I could decorate and dust in gold luster dust for a sparkly satin look. It was indeed quite a process. No real difficulties except with crumb coating of the red velvet, but definitely quite a process. I was surprised that they ended up using twice the amount of icing and twice the amount of fondant than I originally thought they would need. But after all was said and done, I still love the mini cake. They make for a really cute display. However I have a better idea now after the whole process of how much supplies they actually use and how time consuming they are even with a simple design.

*crumb coat- thin layer of buttercream that is not pretty, called crumb coat because crumbs are usually mixed in

**hot knifing- a heated knife dipped in hot or boiling water to smooth buttercream or chocolate free from any lumps

Summer Birthdays

2010-08-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

August 2010

Bailey has been invited to three birthday party's this summer. Last month we celebrated Miss Ava (Bree's oldest daughter) turning 4. Ava is a great big sister and is so cute and gentle when she plays with Bailey. We adore her! Bailey was introduced to a slip and slide at Ava's birthday party and LOVED it! She is too young to run and flop belly first down the slide like the bigger kids, what she loved about it was the little pool at the end and the sprinkling water. I should have bought her some sort of water toy for the backyard but I guess I didn't think about it because I take her to the pool to play with her cousins all of the time. For sure next summer!

and then this last weekend we celebrated Miss Alex turning 2, her mommy Ashley and I were preggos together. Alex is super tall so she is outgrowing all of her clothes fast, her mommy was kind enough to pass down 4 boxes of clothes and shoes and jackets to Bailey! Bailey is showing signs of being a girly girl, totally loves shoes and purses and dresses, but mostly shoes. When Ashley brought over 6 pairs of new shoes to Bailey, she couldn't have been more excited. She is constantly waiving her new shoes at us and asking for us to help her put them on... did I mention constantly?? LOL. Alex's party was held at the Little Gym, which is exactly what it sounds like. They had squishy mats, things to climb on, a host to make them do donkey kicks and tumbles, and songs, hula hoops, bouncy balls, and bubbles. I am considering signing Bailey up for some classes with Alex some time because she had a wonderful time.

And this month we have Miss Colbi, Bree's youngest daughter, turning 3!!

Slacker

2010-08-19T23:03:00.000-07:00

August 2010

Yikes I have been such a slacker about my blog lately! Let's see...

In general Bailey is a happy, funny, outgoing, curious, observational, warm and cuddly little toddler. Her personality reminds me a lot of John's. It's easy to make her laugh and she has her little jokes to make others laugh such as sneaking around corners and yelling boo, or putting bubbles all over her face or mine during bubble baths, or trying to feed you her sippy or snacks, etc. She encourages attention from everyone whether she knows them or not. A new friend can come over and she will plop down in their lap with in minutes or ask them to pick her up or try to share her paci with them. At this point sharing doesn't seem to be a problem unless the child is younger than her and then maybe she seems a little threatened, she likes to be the baby as discovered when Jen came to visit with her infant or when her Aunt Candi is watching baby Landon. She is totally fixated on other children's sippy cups... whatever they are drinking is better than hers even if it is milk which she normally refuses to drink. She loves reading books with me, or just flipping through the pages to look at the illustrations. Right now she is really trying to work on language. She constantly points to random things and asks what it is and studies the answer, so the picture books that are kind of like flash cards are a current favorite of hers. Yesterday she pointed to a chair and asked "what is this?" I answered "a chair." "what is this??" "a. chair." "is this a chair?!". YAY Bailey, that finally verified that she's actually listening to the answers and not just randomly pointing.

I have started introducing her to the potty because she comes to tell me when she is poopy and takes her diaper off if it is wet. She has always hated wet or soiled diapers, and was quick to cry or fuss about them but now she is trying to take matters in to her own hands (no that does not mean she touches it, she hates poopy). With that being said she loves her potty, so I am not exactly sure how to make her understand that she is supposed to relieve her self in her new toy. We have a ways to go with coming to terms with this.

She has been jumping, bouncing and leaping all summer. Yes, their is definitely a difference between the three. Jumping is cute, she throws her cute little arms in the air and does a tiny little hop. Bouncing is done on a ball, our bed, her rocking horse, or on us as she chants jump jump jump. and leaping is a flying leap with her whole body at us so we have to keep on our toes about that one because she doesn't seem to care if we are paying attention or not. She tried to leap off our patio into the grass (picture a belly flop) and then when she thudded into the grass she seemed shocked at how it wasn't the soft landing that I guess she was expecting. Lesson learned on that one.

She does have an emotional side where she will run off crying and shut herself into the bathroom, this is usually because she thinks I don't understand what she wants. I can only imagine how frustrating that is for her, but most of the time I know what she wants but she can't have it like coffee or a Dr. Pepper. If I talk to her when this happens she cries louder and harder. I have ignored it and she collects herself and comes back out. When I tell her no when it comes to her doing something dangerous or not nice she listens, lowers her head, sticks out her bottom lip and freezes by whatever it is that I am telling her not to do. She stands there for a minute as if deciding if she should do it anyways, but so far she has always made the correct choice. Some times she tries to laugh... which makes it really hard to keep a straight face, but if I do crack a smile then she precedes to test me. Typically she does not get emotional about these types of situations so tantrums are not much of an issue, at least for now, and they seem to be short.

She is still learning how to use a fork and spoon. I think she like Mexican food quite a bit. Hot sauce, chips, taco meat, guacamole, tortillas, spanish rice are things that she will chow down on that kind of surprise me. Her favorite three foods at the moment are mac and cheese, fruit snacks, and raspberries, but really she is pretty good about eating most toddler friendly meals. She's not nearly as picky as I was when I was a kid.

So that's Bailey at 20 months.

Fun Week

2010-06-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday John said his goodbyes to working inside of a Best Buy store and is now officially District staff! One of the perks to being a District Staff member is that he no longer works 10 hour days, he's back to 8 or 9 hours DAY time shifts Mon-Fri. Sooo weird when you have been in the land of retail your whole life! Bonus his first Sunday off happened to be on Father's Day. Bailey and I got him a Dallas Cowboy's helmet for our ubber fan. I feel that this is some what of a pointless gift because I don't know what he's really going to do with it, but he's been talking about having one for a long time so it made him incredibly happy and that's what is important. Bailey colored in his card and helped me sign her name, and then walked over to him that morning handing him his sweet card. My Mother's Day card, however, is still unsigned and unrecorded sitting on a counter some where that slacker lol!! Later that day we met the Carminatis, and Nanny and Poppy for dinner at Chuys. I made an Italian Cream Cake for dessert and brought it with us to the restaurant. I don't know if that's weird, but I have delivered several cakes to restaurants for our business and seeing as how it was a holiday I figured it would be cool, we also shared some with the waitress and a fellow cake enthusiast waiter.

this is the best sippy and snack cup ever btw... the snack cup has soft rubber flaps that keep the snack in the cup but is soft enough for little hands to reach in and get stuff, and finally a sippy that doesn't leak all over the place made by playtex

Italian Cream YUMMY! bottom layer is not burned it was just in a darker pan so it baked a little different on the outsides than the other two layers... all three were baked perfectly to taste

John started his new job on Monday and is absolutely loving it! I think it is exactly what he needed to rejuvenate himself, because it's all he can talk about. I am so happy that he is coming home so amped up about his job... and I love that he is home normal hours to play with us! It's like your first week of school how excited you get about your friends being in your new classes and your teachers and everything is a new start. It's made our evenings way more enjoyable and we are both feeling rather blessed at this moment in our lives!

My birthday was on Wednesday and my sweet hubby was on his A game. He brought home some beautiful red Painter's Roses, maybe a dozen or so stems. I have never seen a Painter's rose before so for those of you unfamiliar with them like myself they are fantastically stripey and totally unique to anything I've ever seen before. He also had a card from him and a card from Bailey which she signed and colored and brought to me :D We went out to Kobe's Steak House meeting up with some friends and the Carminatis for some hibachi action. Candi made me a custom crib skirt for Bailey's room and her very first toddler pillow!!! So cute! Now I need to get curtains and I'll photograph her finished room!

I had so much fun on my birthday that I have decided that it should go on for a full week. I asked John if he was cool with this and he agreed. Ok so I might of asked him when he was all sleepy and full from hibachi, but he agreed so I am sticking with this idea. The next day Candi and I snuck off for a girl's night. My PIC (partner in crime) from High School, Sarah, has an older brother Craig. Craig has been a lot of fun to hang out with for years, but it was only through Facebook that I realized he was in the same class as Candi and that they actually knew each other. He hosts a cooking class every two weeks, so we thought it would be fun to take a class from him since we both know him. We had a great time letting him cook us some yummy food and drinking all night without having to take care of children or do dishes and such. We will be doing this again for sure, and hopefully bringing some friends with us for future classes! I know a lot of Mommy's out there dying for a break from time to time! And as a reward to John for being such a great hubby I fixed him the meal I learned for tonight's dinner so we all win.

Bailey has been a little hooligan lately. She searches for pens, crayons, markers, etc in drawers and then uses them to color on the walls and door ways. ROTTEN! I have to keep a close eye on her, she's a sneaky little ninja! She destroys the house if I get on the phone or the computer, much like a puppy would do the minute you leave home. I know it's to get my attention but I am not really sure if I should be putting her in time out for it or trying harder to keep her entertained. She is also trying to get more and more independence, so I've been letting her feed herself scary things like yogurt and purees in addition to her regular finger foods with her very own big girl toddler forks and spoons. She is usually covered in her meal when she is done, but it makes her so happy to do it herself. She is such a happy girl all smiles and giggles and hugs and kisses about 90% of the time. The other 10% is the occasional toddler outburst or pout but at least she's easy to distract and make happy again.

Gothica

2010-06-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

June 2010: 18+ months old (at this point I'm done with counting LOL)

John brings Bailey to come lay in bed with us the other morning as we were slowly trying to wake up. As we were discussing what we wanted / needed to do that day Bailey climbed out of our bed and wondered off. She comes back in and to my surprise she looked like this...

She had tried to eat a fat black washable marker LOL. The Halloween look at me cracking up so hard that I was crying. She has definitely become an expert lid taker offer and it has led to nothing but trouble.

True Blood!

2010-06-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

June 2010: 18 months old

A few of our favorite shows to watch after B goes to bed for the night are True Blood, Dexter, and Big love on HBO and Showtime. John and I get so excited when a new season launches for any of those three series, and it becomes a weekend ritual for us try and get B down for bed early so we can eat dinner together and watch what crazy plot twist happens next. True Blood finally started back up this Sunday with it's season 3 premiere and we couldn't have been more excited about it. Candi and I were supposed to get together earlier that week but something came up and she had to cancel so she had the idea of doing a True Blood party at my house and the kids could play in the back bedrooms while we viewed. I found this as a great excuse to do some True Blood cupcakes and as I was looking online to get some inspiration for cupcake toppers I not only found cupcake ideas but also found a design that would make a cool graphic cake so then I was sucked in and fully committed to doing both. Seems like too much dessert, nah who am I kidding? It would make the kids very happy to have so much cake to munch on! And then I was sneaky enough to send most of it home with the Carminati's so I wouldn't completely fall off my diet LOL I might have sabotaged Candi's though! Now we had a theme going and I had to see it through to the end.

What dinner should be served at a True Blood party you ask?? Cajun of course, since it is set in Louisiana! I remembered Bree talking about her amazing Jambalaya recipe, perfect! It was soooo amazing, and fragrant and delicious! This recipe made a JUMBO pot of Jambalaya and everyone gobbled it down so fast that there was really only one bowl left for lunch the following day, definitely a keeper!! I found some Zapps Voodoo gumbo chips at the store for appetizers and some battered green beans that I served with spicy ranch. Candi brought a blood red home made Sangria (sooo good!! tasted like an alcoholic fruit punch!). All of this for True Blood hahaha!! It was lots of fun, the premiere was awesome, and the food rocked! I would definitely do all of this again for next season! If I had had the time I would have got some cheap party decor to dress the kitchen up as Merlotte's Bar and Grill and the naughty drink and dessert bar as Fangtasia, but I had a lot I was trying to squeeze in in one weekend with real clients and all.

Summer has been so incredibly busy for Bree and I! We were totally booked up through May and June, and our July is filling up fast with some big weddings and several tastings! Sorry if I have a hard time keeping up with the blog this summer, I will do my best not to neglect it! But it can be hard to juggle late night cakes with early morning momminess and taking care of the house and the hubby and squeezing in some work outs. It's all so great though! Loving the buzz!

Yes, the cake has fang marks hehehe

baths, showers and firetrucks oh my!

2010-06-09T00:11:00.000-07:00

June 2010: 18 months old

One of my closest friends, Jen, and her 7 month old son, Loyal, came to visit this past weekend. They stayed at our house in our spare room, and this was Bailey's first experience being around a baby younger than her for any length of time. It wasn't as scary as I thought it could have been. She was very excited by him at first wanting to show him all of her toys and how they work, by then end of the weekend she was over him touching her toys and that was when I really had to keep my eyes on her. But like I said, for the most part she was really good with him and listened to me when she needed to be corrected.

On day 1 we had a play date with another friend's little girl who is just a few months older than Bailey, and Loyal. By the end of it poor baby Loy was a little over stimulated and having a hard time napping so Jen ran a bath for him. Bailey ran over to the tub and leaned in to touch the water... plop, in goes Bailey fully dressed face first into the tub. She looked up not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry, and then decided she was ok with what happened when she saw us laughing at the situation. Baby Loyal didn't find it as funny as the rest of us.

Day 2 we went to the baby shower for another friend, delivering the Monkey Cake, while John watched Bailey at home. Another Mommy was there with a toddler about 14 months who liked to throw everything he picked up.... I have to admit I am not missing that stage one little bit! The cake was a huge hit at the shower, and the kids loved eating the bananas and monkey heads. They thought that the fact that it was all edible was pretty special.

and then Day 3, the final day of their trip. Nothing special was planned that day. I ran to Chiloso's that morning to pick up some breakfast tacos for everyone. A potato egg and cheese breakfast taco is Bailey's favorite breakfast treat. Jen asked when I first started feeding Bailey eggs and I told her at 8 or 9 months I started feeding her scrambled eggs mixed with spinach because they were easy for her to pick up and easy to chew with out choking. So Loyal got his first taste of scrambled eggs. He loved them. Gobbled up the entire egg out of her taco. Ten to fifteen minutes pass and he starts breaking out in red bumps on his chin, and then his chest, neck, back, and behind his knees. We head off to Walmart to get him some Benadryl. She asks the pharmacist at Walmart the correct dose to give a 7 month old. The lady at Walmart gets all crazy on her and tells her to dial 911 immediately. Jen calls her on call doctor, but can't get a hold of anybody. Calls back at the house and neither John or her mom answer the phone and panic sets in. Did I mention she is 7 months pregnant? By this point she is beyond stressed and calls 911 because nobody would help us and allergic reactions can become really bad really fast or just go away, but by that point her mind was understandably now on worst case scenario. Our local fire department comes out immediately to check him out. Fortunately his break out symptoms had already started to disappear and all of his vitals were totally normal. I think the whole fire department showed up at my house, and then once they were there they just wanted to hang out LOL. They checked our smoke detectors and offered to pose for some pics. and then asked if we wanted a tour of the fire truck. Guess there weren't many emergencies happening in our small town that day.

Last Day of School

2010-06-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

June 2010: 18 months old

Today was the last day of school for my niece and nephew. Bailey and I went up to Bella's school to watch their talent show. It was adorable, and some where very talented with the dancing WOW! And some were a little brutal with the singing and the instrument playing, but in all fairness it is quite scary to get up in front of such a large auditorium of parents and students to perform. I think I wouldn't have been able to do it, especially not at that age! Bella and her little buddy Caleb, who is totally adorable, did a short poem about a brother and sister box. I am unfamiliar with this story so I couldn't tell you what it is from, you'd have to ask her or Candi. Bailey was great the whole time and was absolutely delighted to see Bella. She just loves her so much!

Afterwords Bailey stayed with her cousins and her Aunt while I headed off to do a cake with Bree for a friend's baby shower. She will be having a boy and did her nursery in a monkey theme so we did the most adorable monkey cake to match. My bf, Jen from Colorado, and her 6 mo. old son will be staying at our house for weekend to go to the shower. I am so excited to see her and to love on her baby!! John has the weekend off so he can play too!

Six Month Birthday

2010-05-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

May 2010: 18 months old

Bailey is 18 months old today! I wouldn't trade life with my daughter for anything. It has been such an amazing experience to raise this little girl. She is my little ray of sunshine on even some of my most miserable days. I was a little nervous about giving up my freedom to be a Mommy, but I can't even remember life without her. It definitely wasn't as fulfilling! Seeing John as a Daddy made me fall in love with him all over again. She is my little side kick, with me every where I go no matter what I am doing, always trying to "help". I just adore her! I love hearing her little baby jibberish, and watching her little facial expressions as she is trying to tell me something very important. I love how she sneaks up on us and RAWRS at us! I love how she drags her little blanky around the house draped over her shoulder. And I love finding her new hiding spots for her many treasures. I love how she waits for me to fill up her sippy cup with her hands behind her back. I love how she comes up behind me and hugs my leg. I love her ut-oh face. and I love how she picks things up with her toes LOL.

I have been working out like a mad woman and it feels great! I have never been successful working out at home, but being part of a gym makes all the difference. When I am at home I always manage to put it off until it's too late and then I think tomorrow and it never happens. But with the gym I am pushed to do this before John leaves for work, and once I get in my car and head that direction I am fully motivated. It's a nice break to get a little "me" time. To focus on my goals. I have a long road ahead of me for weight loss, but I feel motivated and have made some adjustments to our life style now that I have a car. I haven't yet braved taking Bailey into the gym's daycare because I have never left her with a stranger before. I know I would be right there, but I still have anxiety towards all of that. I do feel positive that she would probably enjoy it, I just have to work up the nerves to feel comfortable with it. I know it's silly and over protective, but I'll get there sooner or later! I am sure it will help break me in for when it's time to enroll her into a preschool, which we both agree we would like to do that as early as possible a few days out of the week.

Our cake business has been blowing up lately! We have had at least one or more cake orders for every weekend booked up passed July along with tastings. Last weekend we did our first and last Jeep cake. The bars gave us so many issues on that Jeep that it almost doesn't feel worth it LOL, although I think if we did have to do another one there would be easier ways to achieve the desired result. We have a guitar cake next weekend that we are going to try to make play a song along with a grad cake. and the pics I have posted are of my Wedding Paper Divas invite project.

Wedding Paper Divas Charcoal and Yellow invite... who says you can't use gray and black in a wedding?

I used the invite as more of inspiration rather than copying the design directly

I tried to go for the same modern twist to a vintage pattern like they did

Mother's Day

2010-05-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

May 2010: 17 months old

We got back from our trip Saturday and then Sunday was Mother's Day. We were still a little exhausted from traveling so we planned for a nice family meal at home. We invite Nanny and Poppy, and Aunt Candi, Uncle Kobi, Cousins Bella and Skylar over for fajitas. Last year I cooked for everyone, but it was so much work that this year I requested John to be the chef. He grilled, his specialty :) and went all out on cooking with beef, chicken, shrimp, and veggies, mexican rice, and black beans. Candi brought dessert and Mom brought the wine. I love it when everyone comes over, makes it super easy with the baby and is always a fun time. John and Bailey got me a card that I haven't seen yet, because it is recordable and he wants a Bailey sound bite before he gives it to me LOL so that might take a minute, and I also got to go the next day to 24 hour fitness and finally sign up. I've been wanting to do this for a while because for obvious reasons I need to regain my physical health back, but I have not really been able to commit to a gym membership until now because of the one car situation. I am so excited to meet with my personal trainer tomorrow to get a fitness plan started and to focus on myself for once!

We went shopping on Monday to get John a few new dress shirts... got to bulk up now that he can't wear his Best Buy blue shirts any longer. And I bought Bailey some new summer clothes. She is still in 9 month clothes... and even some of those are too big for her! I am always so stumped on what to get her because she is almost 18 months but is still so tiny, fairly tall but tiny. and now that she is running around she is slimming even more. I swear I feed her, and she eats really well, but some how she has some crazy metabolism maybe? Last summer's clothes were 3 month outfits, which she can still wear but she's a little tall for most of them. I usually go on ebay and buy her large lots of name brand clothes for cheap but was scared to buy a ton in case she hits a growth spurt and catches up to her age group some how. Is it because she's a girl?

The Cabin

2010-05-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

May 2010: 17 months old

As you read in my previous post my Dad had invited us out to Lake Buchanan for a mini vacation. He told me he would talk to his friend and see if the cabin was free for us to stay in and didn't really tell me in detail anything else about this place. I didn't think to ask much about it since the plans were up in the air on if we were even going to be able to go. We got confirmation on Tuesday that it was free, and headed out Wednesday morning.

Cabin is an understatement. Apparently this was some oil Tycoon's piece of land large enough to be an entire city in acreage, and the "cabin" is actually a 4000 sq ft ranch house built in the 30's. The land was really neat, full of trees, wildflowers, lakes, and cacti. And the wildlife was pretty interesting as well. We were greeted on the ranch by a roadrunner, who ran beside our vehicle for some time. There is a rancher that takes care of some large cattle and horses that are free to graze the land. And there are a good many of wild pigs, turkey and deer that roam the land as well. I am sure there are more random breeds of things but that is the list of interesting creatures that I met on my stay.

Although the land is quite captivating, I found it to be more of a boys club than a nice family oriented vacation spot. The boys left Bailey and I at the ranch house a good majority of the trip to hunt and fish. I might have enjoyed myself more if the house wasn't such an interesting place to a toddler. Being out in the country they get the occasional varmint in the house, so they had mouse poison hiding in every nook and cranny. Bailey enjoyed the scavenger hunt of finding the hidden poisons... fun. And the unlocked cabinets filled with mason jars. And climbing up the giant stairwell every time my back was turned. and sneaking into one of the bathrooms to clog up the toilet with the contents of the waste basket. I hovered the entire time trying to prevent such issues, but it only takes a second.

Despite the many tears and tantrums over mean Mommy telling her no and taking away her newly discovered treasures, she bonded even closer to me because of all of my CONSTANT attention. I did my best to keep her entertained and distracted from crazy things that parents don't want their toddlers to have access to, so she cuddled and loved on me way more than normal. She was actually really really good (curious, but good). She listened when I said no, she slept in her pack and play no problem, even went down for naps (which has been an issue with other trips we've taken) and was very social to all of the relatives. And even though they played separate both John and Bailey had a great time, it was more tiresome and stressful in my shoes. I wouldn't mind going back, but I really don't think it's the best vacation spot with a toddler... so maybe without Bailey next time? Or maybe not for three days, keep it limited to shorter time slots so it's not so exhausting. I don't know, I'll have to plan it out better if I dare to try again with her.

Also, as I mentioned before, John had to leave one of the days to go to a job interview. And he got the promotion! He is now a Territory Finance Solutions Manager. We are so proud of him!! He will be over his district that he has been working in out of Dallas, and also the west Texas district. It will require some travel, but in general his hours will be better, it gives him multi unit experience, and lots of networking opportunities. YAY John!!!! We knew you could do it!

Mudding Truck Cake

2010-05-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

Prior to this cake, the only other sculptural cake I've had a chance to work on was a Littlest Pet Shop Cake for a friend from High School's daughter's birthday. When we created that cake we used rice crispy treats for a majority of the shaping, and the head was cake. This one was a little scary because it was my first time carving cake, but I was thankful that it was a cakey shaped project so it was relatively low stress. If I would have had more time to plan this cake I would change one thing about the over all structure, and that is to make the wheel wells sculpted instead of just painted on... however I didn't have a support system figured out to be able to do that safely so I improvised. Overall I am satisfied with the way this cake turned out. I have decided I need an airbrush so that future cakes of this nature can have a more consistent paint job (Bree has one, but it wasn't accessible to me). My main fear was that it would come across too cartoony, but I think I added enough details for it to hit the targeted age. Happy 16th birthday Hunter! Hope you get your wheels soon ;oP

Past, Present, and Future

2010-05-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 17 months old

Last week we took Bailey to Benihanna's because a dear friend of mine, Downen, was celebrating her birthday and requested us to be there. It's not like she had to twist my arm or anything I love both Benihanna's and my friend a whole lot! Originally we tried to find a sitter however our anniversary was the following day so we opted to just take Bailey along because she is pretty behaved at restaurants as long as I bring tons of snacks and toys to keep her happy in the high chair. Turns out she LOVES Benihannas too. Well, she never really tried the food, but she totally loved the hibachi performance. She clapped and giggle for the man in the funny hat, and the more she cheered him on the more he hammed up his performance for her. Seriously this little girl was cracking up so loud that it had our whole table in stitches. So even though we had her out way past her bed time, shhhh don't tell, I am still happy that we didn't leave her with a sitter for the night since she enjoyed herself so much.

And as I stated previously the following night John and I celebrated two years of marriage which we left Bailey at home for. We went to the Studio Movie Grill, for you Austinites it is much like the Alamo Drafthouse, both of those places have been our favorite date night spot because we both love movies, food and drinks. We had planned on seeing Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell however it was opening weekend and was sold out upon arrival. The only other option was How to Train Your Dragon in 3D. I was totally excited to see this movie, but every time we have gone to see a movie since Bailey was born it always seems to be a G rated movie by default. Lol oh well, date night isn't what it used to be! This was my first movie to view in 3D which made it extra special. And we both thought the movie rocked so even though it wasn't the first choice it still made for a good plan b and a nice night out.

Currently I am working on a mudding truck cake for a 16 yr old's birthday and a display wedding cake to be featured in Wedding Paper Diva's blog. Both are awesome. My hairdresser contacted me asking to make a trade hair and highlights for her 16 year old's birthday cake... I get my hair done and I get to make a totally awesome cake?? Deal! We have a rock crawling Jeep Cake coming up in 3 weeks so this will give me a little practice for that next cake too, even better. I'll let ya know how this little guy comes out, it's my first vehicle cake to try so I am hoping that it rocks. My fear is that it will come out cartoonish and be totally lame for a 16 year old so I will do my best to prevent that from happening. The good thing is that I get to cover a lot of it in "mud" aka chocolate so for it being my first vehicle cake I have a lot of give on it. The cake for the Wedding Paper Diva's blog I am really falling in love with. I have one other element left to complete on it and then it will be ready to photograph. This one I love because I got to pick out one of their invites that I took a liking to and come up with a cake that matched it but has my own twist on it... so it's more inspired by their design but it truly unique.

And coming up John is on vacation starting tomorrow!! I have made plans with my Dad to head down to Austin on Wednesday. The plans are still a little fuzzy as to what is happening. A. we will be staying at the cabin on Lake Buchanon or B. in Earl's rv by Lake Travis. YAY! Can't wait! John has an interview Friday for a new District Accounting position that has opened up in our area for Best Buy so he might have to leave us Thursday night and then come back Friday... doh inconvenient time for an interview, but it'll be totally worth it if he gets that promo! So keep him in your prayers! Bailey also has her K9 teeth trying to cut so she is a little moody at times. Man ever since she turned a year she has had a new tooth or teeth trying to break through every month. I think she will have a full set in no time! The end!

Vocabulary

2010-04-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 16 months old

Everyday I am noticing more and more words that Bailey is saying in the right context and everything. It amazes me at how much of our language she actually understands. I find myself becoming more excited to explain things to her in the best way that I can because now I know she is actually starting to get it. I find her little munchkin voice adorable! And I have noticed that the more she hangs out with Ian the more motivated she becomes to do the things that 3 year olds can do ie. walking, playing in the grass, drinking milk (only if it's from his sippy cups), exploring her toys in the same way he does, and some of his phrases. I think he makes everything fun and interesting to her. So far the things she says are:

Duck quack quack
Dog ruff ruff
Bella, Momma, Dadda
Look! What's that?
Night night
Bye Bye
Hello / Hi
Yeah
Stop / Stop that
Whoa!!
Wow!
What?
No
Ball
Book
Juice
On / Off
Up
Here you go
Yay!!
Ut-oh!
and her yummy noises: MMmmmmm mmmmMMMMmmm MMMmmm (I guess that's not really vocabulary, but it means something and it cracks me up!)

Every few days I can hear something new in her ramblings that is actual English. Right now my favorite is when she throws something like her ball or a toy and then say "Whoa!" like it was so unexpected and exciting to see how far it went.

The other day John misplaced his keys and he was running around frantic trying to find them so that he wouldn't be late to work. He kept rushing back and forth talking about his keys and asking where they were. Right behind him Bailey would be trying to keep up with his pace as she waved her toy keys at him. LOL such a good little helper :D

I have also noticed that she uses her hand signs to sing along with songs like Patty Cake, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, and she claps in the right parts for if You're Happy and you Know It.... I am not sure if that is considered sign language but it sure is cute!

Taste of Wylie

2010-04-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had one of those rare moments where the planets and the stars aligned just right to allow both my bf and I to escape from the house for a couple of hours w/o being on Mommy duty to go to the Taste of Wylie. This is a community fundraising event that all of the local restaurants participate in to let the locals sample food from their restaurants, grocery stores and bakeries and to hand out coupons to capture some new business. They also do tons of raffle items for photography, flower arrangements, electronics, quilts and other random handmade products. But lets be honest we didn't go for the raffles, we went mainly to try some new foods and to get out of the house for a bit. I considered bringing my camera, but for one I wasn't sure how busy and crazy this even would be (which it was pretty packed) and for two we were on a time limit because John had an evening shift to run off to after we returned. I can say that it was fun trying out some of the local business since John and I are new to the area, but mostly the enjoyment was getting some me time with a buddy. No worries for Bailey though, she had a play date right after so she had her fun too. And props to the new ride for making this all possible ;)

Afterwords I made an attempt to weed our backyard. When we moved in part of our contract was for the builders to include sod throughout the property because the backyard is huge and it would have been pretty pricey for us to do it on our own. To lay sod properly you are supposed to kill off all of the weeds and field grass a week prior to laying the new grass. You are also supposed to till and level the ground, and I am sure their are other steps, but these seem to be the main ones. I guess the builder just gets the cheapest of the cheap lawn services to do these things, because all they did was lay the sod directly over the pre-existing field grass. We moved in in Fall so we had no idea what was in store for us come spring time. Yikes! Crab grass is taking over the backyard! We mow the lawn and within a week the grab grass patches sprout up past the ankles. I hate how untidy it makes everything look. We have had two weed treatments done to our lawn, but I have yet to see any real difference. So my friend and I sat down and started pulling. Seriously I need like 15 people to do this with me and with that we might be able to do it in a couple of hours. But that is not likely to every happen. I do have to admit that yanking out those nasty weeds are pretty therapeutic and a great way to build up some arm muscles! So I guess I will take it one chunk at a time and hope to contain the outbreak of field grasses. Unless anybody out their knows of a great treatment to get rid of this mess!

Finally!!!!

2010-04-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

I have only had one car my whole driving life. A 95 Nissan Altima. And most of that driving life both the speedometer and the ac have not worked which has been slightly miserable. I put a lot of money into that vehicle with repairs and such to get it to last me as long as it did, but eventually the transmission started to bow out gracefully. My credit was shot early in life so it was never an option for me to buy a car even though eventually I made enough money to support a car payment. At the time John had just purchased his own vehicle so he was not approved to have another until that note was paid down. I started to become unreliable at work with the ride situation so I quit my job until the time came where we could figure out a more reliable means of transportation for myself. Not too long after that Bailey happened. We got serious about the finances, paid his car note down, fixed the credit, got a house. New home buyers' tax credit has made the wait for a new, reliable, safe vehicle finally come to an end! Bailey and I are free to roam the Dallas Metro and take road trips whenever we want to!! I fell in love with the new Ford Edge crossover vehicles because they have everything I could possibly want in a car, great on gas for an SUV type of vehicle, and since it's domestic the repairs will be cheaper once it starts getting older. It's leather, with seat heat, dual climate zones, dual moon roofs, 5 disc CD changer, and lots of backseat space for B! The backseat will fold down flat for an 8 foot loading zone for our giant cakes hahaha. I love it so much I could hug it! Being in a house has made being with out a car less of a drag, but for 3 years it has paid it's toll on me. I can't even begin to tell you the excitement I feel and the relief I have over this. Thank you God for blessing our family!!!!

For Juli Moon

2010-04-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 16 months old

My sister Juli, passed away April 6, 2005 from a brain cancer called Nueroblastoma. Juli battled this cancer most of her life, but she always kept a smile on her face and her witty sense of humor about life. So many things in life remind me of her humor that it makes it easy to smile whenever my mind wanders off and finds her. Certain songs, tons of movies... especially Wayne's World, and all things pig related. Juli adored pigs sooooo much, and every Christmas or birthday we were always able to find at least one random pig item to gift her. I can only imagine what her collection must have looked like! When she passed in April, my sister Candi along with some of her sewing friends, created a line of custom pig clothing in memory of her. My Mom's boss purchased a pair of overalls for her little girl made by Candi's friend Candi (confusing I know LOL), and then once she outgrew them sent them back our way for Bailey. This April marks the five year anniversary of her passing and it only seemed fitting to dress Bailey in her piggy overalls as much as possible this April. I find it so incredibly special that they made their way back to us.

So Juli, here's to you! I hope you know you are always in our hearts, our smiles, and our memories. Knowing you and being a part of your story has made me a stronger person. You have been a positive role model to the people in your life in ways that you can't imagine and will continue to be long after your death. We love you sis!

Bailey Toon

2010-04-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

One of my bff's, Barbara (who's getting married!!!) created this little Bailey toon :D I am so excited for her and her fiance, Jedidiah. Barbara is one of my girls that I have know since High School. No matter how much distance is between us or how much time has passed we can still pick up right where we left off, giggle about stupid things, cry on each other's shoulders, tell each other things we shouldn't, be ourselves 100% and never have any awkwardness. This girl is so funny, she can bring me to tears (in laughter) at any moment... we got in trouble in class many times because of this! She is so intelligent and beautiful and kind hearted. I couldn't be more happy for her that she has found her soul mate and her happily ever after. Congrats Barbara!!!!

Easter 2010

2010-04-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 16 months old

As promised the Easter post hehe. I know everyone was at the edge of their seats waiting ;P

This was the first year Bailey has been big enough to enjoy Easter. We got to host Easter at our house this year so I stayed up late the night before cleaning the house, stuffing eggs, and making Easter goody baskets for everyone. My mom brought over our traditional Easter breakfast casserole, fruit and dip, coffee cake and deviled eggs. mmmm yummy! Bailey slept through everyone arriving, and when she finally woke up she was totally shocked to see everyone here to greet her and give her prizes.

My sister brought her an egg that shouts "I'm over here!" "Come find me" and all sorts of cuteness, and when you open it up there is a little animal inside that says "you found me!!!!" Bailey carried that thing around with her most of the morning. When the Easter bunny hid the eggs for her and her cousins to find he made some Bailey friendly eggs filled with gummy snacks and animal cookies that he hid on our patio so she wouldn't have to walk on that scary grass. The rest were filled with all sorts of yummies and strewn across our quarter acre lot for

Bella and Skylar to race after.

Bailey didn't so much hunt the eggs and put them in her basket. She opened the first couple and ate the snacks inside and then started to throw them off the patio into the grass. She likes to throw things these days. Oh well, whatever makes her happy. She may get the concept a little more next year maybe. All in all it was a good day with the family. After everyone left it was nap time, so we all just kinda kicked back and relaxed the rest of the day, and planned our trip for the Arboretum the following day.

Bailey throwing her Easter snacks overboard

Backyards Rule

2010-04-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 16 months old

I love having a backyard. I forgot how great they can be. I think I took them for granted as a kid, and now that it's been 10 years since I last lived some where that offered me a backyard, I have grown a whole new appreciation for them. Ours is huge. We don't have any playground equipment, or a pool, or even trees, but it is big full of grass and fenced and that is awesome when you have a tot. I hope that some day we will have the opportunity to do more with what we have, but for now and at her age this is perfect. Bailey's best friend Ian came over to play today, along with his mommy, my bf. We took the kids outside to run around in back and play ball. Normally Bailey doesn't want anything to do with the grass, but she saw Ian running around and needed to be near him so she overcame her fears. And at this moment it made me fully appreciate what a yard has to offer. It's a safe place. A place that offers total peace of mind. No cars to worry about. No strange animals or dogs w/o leashes. No strangers to keep my eye on. Just me and my baby, and whoever else comes to play. And John loves to spend time tossing the football with his nephew, Skylar, or his buddies that come over, looks like he'll have two new little football buddies ;P

Scenery

2010-04-05T17:53:00.001-07:00

These are just a few photos that capture a little bit of the beauty at the Arboretum... makes me want to hire a landscaper.

On each aisle to park is a tree, and we parked right next to ours at the end of the row. I was looking at the trunk to see the aisle number and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because the bark appeared to be moving. I looked closer and saw hundreds of caterpillars climbing up the trunk. It was kinda neat, kinda creepy all at once, but I had to take pics.

Caterpillar army

Tulips everywhere!!

The park was filled with the smells of Spring

Beautiful Japanese Maples, my favorite trees

And a few of the many waterscapes

Flower Festival

2010-04-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

April 2010: 16 months old

I will post Easter pics later. I've got to do things a little backwards because my camera was not charged up for some reason on Easter morning. I left the photography up to my sister, which will probably be better than the pics that I would have taken anyway. Waiting for her to make edits and post them, and then I can blog about our wonderful Easter Sunday hosted at our house.

Today, being Monday, John was off so we took this opportunity to go to the Spring Flower Festival at the Dallas Arboretum. This was the place that my friend, Holly, and her son, Ian, took Bailey and I to in Fall for the pumpkin Fest. It was absolutely beautiful! And though Fall holds the biggest place in my heart, the Arboretum this time of year makes Spring a close contender.

Six months ago when we took Bailey to see the pumpkins she was still just cruising. But now she is walking, so it made it even more entertaining, and at times slightly challenging. She loved the flowers and the waterscapes. She refuses to walk in grass, but tried it out a little at the Arboretum because it is soft and green and beautiful. I would say she tolerated the grass, I didn't see the usual fear come across her face, but I also didn't see delight about it. I wish we could have made it out there a little earlier in the morning because they had photos with live bunnies, and a petting zoo that we missed out on. Oh well, maybe next time.

Easter Bunny

2010-04-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

We did Easter photos today. I have been dying to take her to see the Easter bunny, because Bailey is REALLY outgoing like her Daddy. I was curious to see what her reaction would be to a 10 foot tall bunny rabbit. Would he be traumatizing, exciting, unsure??? Well, she LOVED him. We sat in line for what felt like forever because the photographers had to spend about 15 minutes per kid to try and get them to crack a smile for the camera. People in line kept talking to her and smiling at her and for whatever reason, possibly nap time, she acted shy. I thought that this was a sign that Mr. Bunny would be scary, but once we set her in his big furry lap she lit up from head to toe. She explored his buttons and bow tie, clapped for him and smiled from ear to ear. Oh my gosh she was just so darn cute. Within 2 minutes they had their shot and were shocked at her reaction towards him LOL. We all were I think. It was like he was a giant Mr. Kitty that was welcoming her into his arms. Love at first sight. Totally worth the wait in line, and $20 for two 5x7.

Clapping for finally being able to sit on the Easter bunny

Exploring his coolness

waiting in line for the bunny

Official bunny pic

Art Show

2010-04-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

So this actually happened last month, but I didn't get around to uploading the pics until just now. It's Mckinney ISD art show time, and of course my talented niece had a piece featured in the show. We have made it to everyone so far :) For whatever reason, Skylar's school only had 8th grade artwork presented, so I guess we won't be seeing his work again for another couple of years. Bailey enjoyed it as always, and I really love seeing all of the work from different grades. Very impressive, and brings me back to many fond memories of my own art classes. My only disappoint is that this year they didn't have much in the way of High School art, but we all had a blast on our viewing.

4th grade art

9th grade art

High School Art

digital art

3rd grade art, pretty impressive!

Bella and her piece

Bella and her bff Kate

chillaxin' on the couch at the show

my little stinker

Easter Bunnies

2010-04-02T21:17:00.001-07:00

The second batch turned out to be a little easier. I learned to spoon the melted chocolate over the pops instead of dipping them, to prevent them from crumbling apart and ruining your white chocolate. Which is why I did blue easter bunnies, instead of white easter eggs covered in sprinkles like I had originally planned. They are blue and cute, and my cake pop project can finally come to a rest. Been planning on making these for over a week, but just finally got around to them. One of my bunnies didn't make it, so I got to sample it, and I found them to be pretty tasty. Like a cake truffle. The icing mixed into the cake makes it super moist and cakey. I think my niece and nephew will be pleased with their Easter treats.

Cake Balls

2010-04-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Bree has made these before, but for me this is a first. They sound a little sugary for my taste, but are perfect treats for the kiddos. A cake ball is a mixture of cake and icing rolled into a ball and then dipped in chocolate. I decided these would be a fun thing to stick into the Easter baskets since Easter will be at my house this year. I started out making Easter chickens and they came out super cute. I then melted my white chocolate so I could do the rest as Easter eggs, but I learned something upon making these. When you roll your mixture of cake and icing into balls you stick them in the freezer to harden before you dip. After I made my chickens, the rest of my, um cakes, softened, so when I dipped them in the white chocolate for the start of my Easter eggs, they started to crumble. So either the chocolate needed to be even meltier, or I needed to refreeze, or a combo of the two. I decided to pop my remaining cakes back in the freezer to resume making my eggs tomorrow night. But for now enjoy my Easter chickens, and I will post the eggs within the next couple of days :)

Happy Feet

2010-03-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

March 2010: 16 months old!

Happy sweet 16 munchkin... 16 months that is ;oP not quite ready for keys to a car yet thank God! One of my favorite new Bailey feature is her Happy Feet! Have you seen that movie with the little penguin that shuffles his feet around all silly and happy, that is exactly what Bailey does. It cracks me up with her cute little munchkin body and diapered butt dancing around on her happy feet. Happy feet can happen at any given moment, snack time, Yo Gabba time, new diaper time, bath time, you name it. The more I cheer her on the happier the feet get LOL. It kills me! She's just so darn cute! I also find it funny when she blows raspberries on my arm or tummy or cheek. She's so silly and adorable, it's great! She's still on the small side, wears 6-12 month clothes. People are always shocked when I tell them how old she is, because of her size. This adds to the funniness... making up words now... to the Happy feet.

At this point she can say: Ut-ohhh, yeah, bye bye, Dada, Mama, ball, hi, Bella, and OH!

Playing with Cupcakes

2010-03-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

I made some cupcakes for dessert, and borrowed one to play around with for a new design that I thought could be fun. A Vera inspired cupcake dress. I think it's cute, although Disney princess cakes and Barbie cakes may have stolen the show for the whole cake dress idea. But maybe since it's a cupcake and not a giant brightly colored buttercream ball gown, it could be put to new uses such as for bridal showers or rehearsal dinners. What do you think?

Mini Cakes

2010-03-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

One of my besties since High School, Barbara, is getting married! She asked me to be in her wedding as a bridesmaid, which I am both honored and stoked to do. She also wants to use us in making cakes for her wedding. Her main dessert will be gelato but would also like to do some smaller cakes for her guests as either wedding favors or to be served along side. We talked over her options and she is torn between mini cakes (single serving cakes that are no bigger than a cupcake but designed to mimic an actual wedding cake) and cupcakes. As I searched photos online of these adorable little mini cakes, I got inspired to create a series of my own. Unfortunately I don't have the piping skill set yet and some of the other skills that seasoned cake decorators have (thank goodness Bree does though!!)... some day I hope to take some classes or maybe even pastry school, but until then I have my art skills as my own personal specialty. Fortunately for me they don't teach drawing or painting skills in pastry school, at least I haven't heard that they do..., so those are something I have that are uniquely mine. I created a series of Van Gogh inspired mini cakes and I am really proud of how they turned out. These little cakes are the size of a round cookie cutter, maybe 2.5 inches high and 2.5 inches in diameter, cute enough to eat and would definitely be a cool statement at any wedding that all the guests would be talking about!

Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night inspired mini cake

Van Gogh's Starry Night inspired mini cake

Van Gogh's Irises inspired mini cake

Van Gogh's Wheat Field inspired mini cake

I used a mixture of food coloring and royal icing to create the painted effect, so yes, they are entirely edible. I plan to do more featuring different artists that I love. I hope these are a hit with our clients / future clients! We have a web site, blog, and facebook fan page for those who are interested in following us!

Honey-Do list

2010-03-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

March 2010: 15 months old

John has been on vacation this week. He hasn't had a vacation since last year's Super Bowl. We have had tons of things that were on the to do list for the house, and were able to knock out quite a bit of them while he was off! We got our garage door opener installed, the shower curtain rod to Bailey's bathroom hung, a peep hole installed in our front door, garage cleaned out, and painted two rooms. The first one we did was the breakfast room. I picked orange... don't judge me. Ok, so I know orange is an either love it or hate it kind of color, but I don't care, it's my house and both John and I think it rocks so we went with it. It'll be a little while before we get to dress it up with a new table and curtains and blah blah blah, but I'll show you a teaser pic so you can get the idea.

The other room we tackled was Bailey's nursery! I chose gray to go along with her black, white, yellow color theme. I hand painted tall white birch trees as a feature wall that her crib is against. I got the idea from some decals that I saw online, however the set of decals cost $80 so I decided to try to get the same effect myself with painters tape and white paint. I have heard the trick is to paint over your tape lines with clear glaze before you start painting to seal it off so the lines stay crisp... clear glaze was $16, I substituted for a clear top coat for faux finishes for $6 and it actually worked the same. So I got an $80 dollar look for under $20. I am also planning on adding three little yellow birds to the wall, but I didn't get that far yet. And I need another can of gray paint for touch ups, and to cut in closer to the ceiling, I did what I could to make the other can stretch.

Teething Bites!

2010-03-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

February: 15 months

You may have noticed the lack of material that I have been posting. My little munchkin has a grip of teeth all trying to push in at once. Two top molars, two bottom molars, the top k-9 teeth, and two bottom front ones to name a few. This has made for some long days for the both of us. Not all of them are awful, they take turns on which days they want to bug her. But yeah... my poor little girl is drooly, bitey, chewy, emotional, needy, frustrated, temperamental, and nothing I do can really help at the moment. She wakes up whining, whines all day, and has trouble sleeping at night. I end most of my days with a migraine, and want nothing more than a cool dark room with the only sound being the melodic rhythm of my ceiling fan. Being on the computer is usually out of the question, the phone is tolerated for brief periods, and sometimes she is so miserable that she doesn't even want company over... which is totally out of her norm because she is a social butterfly, loves everyone who looks her way, those who don't are a challenge, and crowds are fascinating. I feel really bad for her, and I am absolutely amazed at how much patience I have. On the flip side, she has really become quite cuddly. A lot of times the only thing that makes her happy is snuggling up on me on the couch and watching cartoons, and it makes me so happy that I have the opportunity to be a stay at home Mom and be there for her when she is so miserable.

When she is happy she spends her day chasing Mr. Kitty around the house, "helping" me do the household chores, hiding her toys in random spots in the house, and climbing. The other day she climbed right out of her crib when she was supposed to be napping. I came in to find her hugging the rail of the crib and crying. We were able to lower to the lowest setting, which was only one step down and I hope that will contain her for a while. I don't think it will be an easy transition to the toddler bed, but I could be wrong. She has also taken a liking to purses or anything that has a strap to carry it around like a purse. So cute and girly of her. She also likes the fact that you can put things in and take things out of a purse, it is an amazing feature, quite possibly the second best part. Oh yeah, jumping and standing on our heads is also a great game. She has really developed a big sense of humor too. She cracks up at pretty much anything, the little party blowers that I had at her first birthday are a real doozy... we didn't like them at all at 12 months but at 15 months they are hilarious.

Do not underestimate her sneakiness

2010-02-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

February 2010: 14 months old

I have been missing the very small connector piece to our laptop charger for weeks now. I have looked high and low, cleaned the house top to bottom several times, and checked all of Bailey's usual hiding places (like the drawer underneath the oven, underneath the ottoman, behind the bathroom door, the kitchen drawers, over the kitty gate for the laundry room, the bathtub, etc.) for her treasure stashes without any luck. I was just about to give up and ask John to buy a new one, because this time Bailey has out smarted us all, and even though $50 for a new charger is quite a bit of money it would be worth it by this point, and then I found it. Where was this charger piece you ask? Inside of the couch's base!? I had lifted the couch up to look one last time underneath it, and heard something rattle to the back of the couch coming from inside the couch. Sneaky baby!!!! I couldn't help but laugh at how clever this new hiding spot was, sure I missed my computer, but at least it wasn't something essential like John's car key or our debit cards.

Happy Birthday Max!

2010-01-14T10:29:00.001-08:00

I hear that today the long awaited arrival of my cousin's baby, Max, has finally happened! YAY! Congrats Jennifer and Sam on your newest little angel, and Congrats Samantha and Jack on the arrival of your little brother!! We are thinking about your family today and wishing we could be there to meet him! We are also praying on a speedy recovery for Jennifer. Happy Birthday Max, we hear you are a big boy already at 9 pounds!

We are working on a time when we can come visit since we have two new baby cousins to squeeze on!! Love you guys!!!

Simple and Deliscious!

2010-01-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

Family Recipes

I am going to share two of my favorite recipes that are super easy to prepare, easy on the bank account, and always a hit for our family and guests. Both use similar ingredients which is why I will post them together. The first one I have made several different times usually on New Year's Eve or a big football game day. It is a brisket recipe that was originally given to us by my Aunt Jamie, who will always be in my heart and both as a mom and an Aunt I think of her often hoping that I can be as incredible as her.

Ingredients:

Brisket
1 Beer
1 packet of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix
1 jar of Hunt's Chili Sauce( I had no idea what this was until I made this recipe, it looks just like a bottle of Ketchup and is found in the same aisle of the grocery store as ketchup, but is usually kept near the Tabasco products)

Pour ingredients over brisket in a large baking dish and bake in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes on each side uncovered to sear the meat. Then lower temperature of the oven to 350 and cover, bake for 1 hour on each side.

The second recipe is just as simple, for a slow roasted whole chicken. I have made many versions of roasted chicken before, and I think this is my favorite. I cooked this one tonight, because I had the stuff left over from the brisket and a whole chicken in my freezer. If I had to add anything to it I might consider stuffing it with limes or some sort of citrus, but it was awesome as is.

Ingredients:

Chicken
1/2 Beer
1 packet of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix
Olive Oil

In a dutch oven pour half a bottle of beer and place your whole chicken. Rub olive oil over the skin and sprinkle soup mix. Cover and bake at 350 for 2-3 hours, uncover and bake for another 10-15 minutes to let skin crisp.

Ok so I didn't actually take these pics, I didn't think to do that because I didn't realize I would be blogging about them until after I ate a plate of this tasty chicken. These pics were actually found on the web, and they were the closest in appearance to what mine turned out like... my chicken was a little more golden than this one because I took the lid off to let it crisp a little. Both of these recipes were so tender and fragrant, and required little effort on my part, which I love as a busy Mommy who's husband works late nights, so I thought I'd share.

Walking Shots

2010-01-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

January 2010: 13 months old

Bailey's confidence is growing every day with her walking abilities. Within the last two days she has been walking from one piece of furniture to the next quite a bit! Every time she makes an attempt at it Bailey and I both clap and celebrate. She has gotten to the point that if she is walking when I am not looking she will clap for herself anyways LOL. She is very cautious as she walks, if she starts to lose her balance instead of trying to hurry to her desired destination she will instead stop to regain her self control and then slowly proceed. I don't know if all babies do that when they are learning to walk, but I thought it was pretty big of her. Anyway today I took a few snapshots of her on some of her journeys.

toes digging into the carpet for balance

Walking several feet from the fireplace to the couchcelebrating a successful journeylooking a little concerned about this voyage

This week

2010-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

December 2009: 13 months old

Bailey had her first sleepover last week at her Aunt Candi's! We had received two gift cards to Papasitos so we decided we should go on a long overdue date since we haven't had much time together in the last month due to retail and the holidays. We desperately wanted to get out of the house, but of all the days John had off it landed on a night with snow and frozen roads so we made the choice to leave her at her Aunt's for safety reasons. I was a little sad leaving my side kick for the first time for so long, but the Margaritas helped and the fact that she didn't seem to mind one little bit helped rid me of my guilt. I thought the babies were supposed to get separation anxiety, but it seems to just be me who has it. While she was there she learned to say Bella... except it sounds more like Bell with some kind of vowel noise attached as an afterthought. She totally adores Bella. Ever since she was super tiny if Bella was around Bailey would instantly become mesmerized by her, and if she left the room Bailey would cry. Now days she just follows her around like a little puppy.

She has also started braving her first steps. She has been considering this for a while now and has been letting go of the furniture more and more as she cruises, but lately she has started to brave the gliding to and from various pieces of furniture. It is still pretty random, but I don't think it will take her long to get her confidence around it. Such a big thing for a little!! As she starts to do this more I will try to record it or photograph it for the blog. YAY Bailey!!!

As for the New Year's Eve, it was pretty tame. It pretty much has to be with a baby in the house! I cooked a brisket, John got off work early, and I had my best friend come over for a few drinks. After she left John and I toasted to the new year and declared our resolutions for ourselves and our family, then cuddled up on the couch and watched True Blood until we fell asleep. Bailey woke up some time around 2 am, probably because she has some molars cutting through, and so she joined in on our snuggle fest and we all fell back asleep on the couch as a family.

John had to leave for work in the morning, so Bailey and I cooked my traditional Black-Eyed Peas in the crock pot and tackled organizing what is supposed to be a formal dining room, but in actuality is our play room for now because it keeps her visible to us at all times. My mom always cooked Black-eyed Peas on new year's day, but I was never a fan. And then one particularly horrible year my room mate and I decided that we needed all the help we could get on luck and good fortune for the new year so we should eat some to prevent a repeat. We did not think of this until 11:30 pm so we rushed to the grocery store and bought a can and rushed home to cook it. We didn't have time to heat it up all the way before the day officially ending so we scooped the luke warm peas into our mouths, chewed and swallowed just as the clock struck midnight. That year ended up being amazing, so I have superstitiously stuck to this tradition. The one time I forgot since then sure enough ended up being a trying year. And you better believe I ate them all through pregnancy ;oP but that was more for the folic acid that they are full of. *since then I have made up my own recipe instead of using a can, I have learned they are much tastier my way.

2009 was particularly different for me than other years of my life. This last year was really my first year as a Mom since B was born at the tail end of '08. We both spent the year with our minds and our hearts wrapped around our foundation for our family, learning how to be parents, learning this new dynamic in our relationship together, and cutting costs as much as possible to clean up the credit enough for our home. So as far as setting and meeting our resolutions in 2009 we did just that! We both agreed that in the last two years of our lives everything has changed and that we need to focus a little more on ourselves in 2010, making time for our friends, going on dates, family outings, and finding a hobby to get a little "me" time that we are both starving for. We are working on getting me a car ASAP now that we have our house and that his car is paid off, which will help with EVERYTHING! I can not even begin to express how excited I am to get that little piece of freedom back in my life, especially after this December, I think I stayed in the house this whole month! Talk about cabin fever! We have both made tremendous sacrifices to get where we are now, so it's time to reap the rewards and we couldn't be more excited to see what this year has in store for us and how much Bailey will learn and grow!
These are a couple pics off Candi's camera from Christmas Eve at Nanny's house in her cute Christmas dress. She had snuck over to the tree before we had sat down for dinner to dive into Bella's basket of wrapped Beanie babies. She looks reluctant to leave the gift alone! Guess she was ready to get the party started :)

Christmas 2009

2009-12-26T12:22:00.000-08:00

December 2009: 13 months old

We did our first round of Christmas at my Mom's house on Christmas Eve. John had opened that morning and it had been snowing all day so by the time he came home it was freezing with brutally cold winds. We rushed to get ready and the car all loaded up, but in the midst of all the craziness I left my camera at home BOO! I was bummed when I got there and realized it didn't make it. It turned out that I probably wouldn't have been able to take pics effectively anyways because little Bailey was everywhere and it was all very chaotic, but she was so adorable in her cute little Christmas dress and red tights that I will still have to do a mini photo session! My mom's big gift to Bailey was a much needed high chair from Fisher Price's Zen collection. This high chair is way cool and modern, looks like a real piece of furniture. She also got her a huge basket filled with Beanie Babies, a Zhu Zhu pet hamster so her and Bella can play with them together, and what seemed to be her favorite FurReal infant puppy and kitten she kissed on them all night and my favorite toy that she got Bailey was a Teddy Ruxpin! I used to have him when I was little and loved it a whole lot! I think Maple Town and Teddy Ruxpin were my most prized possessions as a kid. Apparently they put him back on the market, smaller and using cartridges instead of cassettes. Bailey lit up when he started talking to her and blinking at her. So cute! And I fully intend to get her some Maple Town animals either next Christmas or the one after, they are kinda like the vintage littlest pet shops.

On Christmas morning Bailey was a lot of fun with the presents. It was hard to keep her focused on the task of unwrapping so of course we had to help with most of it, but she was loving all of her toys! She would explore them with hands and feet, roll around with them, sit on them, kiss them, throw them over her head... it was great :)

She threw her arms up in the air and flew over backwards LOL

Rolling around with her new Legos

on to Andrea and Grand Dad's gifts!
BIGGEST. Board Book. Ever. SO COOL!

and finally our big Santa gift was the Little People Nativity set! She was so excited to see those little faces under the wrapping paper. And the box was super fun with the mystery hole in the front OOOoooo!

A white Christmas

2009-12-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

December 2009: 13 months old

Texas is so unpredictable. On December 23 I have to crank my ac on because the temperature in my house has risen to 75 degrees, and the next day a blizzard blows through making it a white Christmas. For one, a white Christmas in Texas is rare, but the drastic change from hot to cold always blows my mind. Not that I am complaining about it snowing on Christmas Eve, I think that is actually pretty neat since snow in Texas is such a rarity. Especially since it is our first Christmas in our new home, our first Christmas to play Santa Claus, and now we get to have the memory of waking up to snow! Very cool indeed!

Sleepovers and Salt Dough

2009-12-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

December 2009: 12 months old

Our modem went out last week and we just got it replaced today! YAY for the ability to connect once again with the outside world ;P Over the weekend we had Bella and Skylar over for a sleepover and I was inspired by my cousin, Jennifer's, family blog to make Salt Dough ornaments as a craft to entertain my young niece and nephew and as a reason to play with dough. The recipe is very simple, anyone can do it, and my crafty niece loved it. Marking this the best sleepover ever.

Recipe:

1 cup Flour
1/2 cup Salt
1/2 cup Water

bake at 250 for about 2 hours.

I made two batches. One batch was used for them to make whatever sculptures they wanted with whatever tools they could think up... they were pleased to use a rolling pin for this project
And the other batch we cut out circles for ornaments (if I had cool cookie cutters we would have used them for sure, but I don't yet) but they were fine, especially Bella, with the option of painting their own images on them. We did the sculpting and baking at night, and then the kids had a pajama toy party playing with Bailey and taking great pride in acting like little baby sitters catering to her every need. Needless to say Bailey had a wonderful time climbing all over her cousins, imitating their every move, and showing off her toys.
The next morning we got up and made a big breakfast, that was compared to Uncle Earl's breakfast feast, Earl will always be associated with a big delicious breakfast in their brains ;D Bella became number one in Bailey's book, because she eagerly pushed her around the house in her favorite toy, the Winnie the pooh train. Ever since she was gifted this from her Nanny and Poppy it has become a nightly routine for Bailey and I to walk about 20 laps around the house in this thing and she never grows tired of it. When I take her out she cries until I distract her with something else. But fortunately for Bella, she is also a kid, who doesn't easily get tired of things so she wore Bailey out in that thing! It was really easy getting her down for a nap later.They made some kind of game out of it where Bailey was a police officer and Skylar raced around with one of her walkers as the outlaw, then they would trade off LOL. Once I got Bailey down for nap we painted our ornaments from the night before as a quiet activity, made lunch, and baked cookies.

Shopping: Check!

2009-12-16T23:14:00.000-08:00

December: 12 months old

I think we have Bailey all covered for Christmas shopping as of today. For her birthday she received two walkers (one baby doll stroller from us, and the other a cute little wooden one from Ikea that has a basket on the front gifted to her by my friend Holly), also a ride along Winnie the Pooh toy from Nanny and Poppy, and a Rocking Horse from her Grand Dad... plus books and little people, which we love! Apparently Ikea has lots of cool baby stuff, I had no idea, so I need to check it out because I love that little walker!

As far as Christmas goes, I kinda felt like she has just been totally spoiled for her birthday last month and wasn't sure what else she would need. Never under estimate the toy market, I still ended up finding lots of treasures at Walmart today. Her big gift is the Little People Nativity set, then she got two musical books that are of course learning based with colors, abc, numbers, shapes, animals, and kid songs, one board book, (I feel less guilty about the spoiling happening here if they are learning oriented or books) a sock monkey that she picked out, big Lego's, and a soft baby lovie. My only problem is that with the recent events of the showering her with gifts, we are running into storage and organizational issues. Any solutions around that?

I might be caught up

2009-12-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

December 2009: 12 months old

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, the Christmas rush has left me pretty busy. I really need to learn how to shop throughout the year vs waiting until December because money and deadlines take some of the fun out of it all. Fortunately this year we are more prepared for it than we ever have been, but it has been tricky with John's loooong hours and him gone 6 days a week. Since we share a car I had to order most things online, thank you Internet! Seriously, what did people do before Internet? I actually got Christmas cards out before Christmas this year, which in years passed has never been a guarantee. And most everything that I have here is wrapped and ready to go! The tree is up and decorated, stockings hung, and Christmas pics have been snapped. I have to admit I was a little worried about putting up the Christmas tree with a cruising baby, but she only seemed interested in it the first day. I don't have any fragile type ornaments up that I feared would break and be dangerous, I was more worried about her trying to pull herself up with the branches and pulling the whole thing down on top of her. She doesn't seem to like the texture of the branches so it hasn't been an issue like I thought it might be. As far as her Christmas pics, we did the first series at my sister's house, she was in a cute little red shirt and blue jean skirt in those. For some reason we couldn't get the lighting right and struggled with either overexposed pics or blurred pics from my very busy daughter. The next day I did pics at my house, the shirt she had used from the night before was dirty so I put her in a red onesie which she promptly threw up on. I did not have any other red outfits for her so I just did some of her in her diaper with her baby legs on. I hope they do not come off as inappropriate to people. I didn't think anything of it when taking the pics, but my husband seemed a little worried about it. I think they are cute so I went ahead and used them anyways. These are some of my favorites.

Oh and my funny baby story: Since I have been spending so much time on the computer editing pics, ordering cards and presents Bailey has been getting a little annoyed by it, understandably since it's just me and her all day. But I have to get this stuff done sooner vs. later so they can arrive before Xmas and birthdays... Candi, Kobi and Bella are all December birthdays. Anyway, Bailey would come up to the computer and unplug it all ninja like. I would try to make a silly out of it and wave my finger all animated and say in a goofy voice "stop that" and then pick her up to love on her. Apparently she picked this up and is mimicking me. My best friend brought her 2 year old son, Ian, over who Bailey just adores. Most of the time they play really well together, but sometimes they get territorial over the toy situation as babies do. I caught her waiving her finger at him and saying "DAT DAT!" LOLOL

need a new pc?

2009-12-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

Cool new give away for a HP Touchsmart 600 on totally Together Reviews! The computer features:

--Touch Screen technology (you can use your finger as a mouse!)

--Super large 23” flat-screen monitor (that can be wall-mountable!)

--the ability to use as a Television, DVR, and DVD/Blue Ray player

--You can TALK to it, using a Blue Tooth (so super cool)

--Webcam

--Wireless keyboard and mouse that can be used up to 30 feet away

--ONE plug. That’s it! and no computer tower, which I love. It’s so clean-looking!

If you are interested in entering: http://totallytogetherreviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/hp-touchsmart-computer-review-and-give.html

Just a Few More

2009-11-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

November 2009: 12 months old

These are a few from my camera that I loved. The first one is Birthday morning when B woke up drinking her juice. She was so excited to see the streamers and birthday banner in the breakfast room, which we designated the party room since the dining was taken over by Thanksgiving decor. The second pic is B tearing through the wrapping paper, which aside from the cake was her favorite part of the day. She loved her presents and all but the unwrapping was definitely the highlight of her morning. And the last is a happy baby loving her day.

Birthday Party Time

2009-11-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

November 2009: 12 months old

Bailey's birthday party was so much fun! We had a great turn out considering it was on Thanksgiving! It was a little hectic pulling off Thanksgiving and a Birthday party in one day, but I think gifts and cake made Thanksgiving a lot more entertaining than just stuffing yourself until you pass out on the couch! It definitely made it feel more kid friendly and exciting. Bailey was so much fun with her giant cupcake smash cake. Candi was my photographer for the day and she got some fantastic shots that really captured the memory of the party. Bailey was so excited to see that giant cake put in front of her and then she looked around at all of us in disbelief that it was actually for her. She carefully poked a finger into the frosting and tasted it and then became more and more brave with the tasty sugar feast in front of her. Eventually she LOVED it so much that she hugged it LOL, and grabbed a chunk of cake to rub on her face. After a bit her eyes glazed over and she seemed like she was on autopilot scooping more and more cake into her mouth. She was a champ all morning and afternoon with all of the craziness. She was pleased to tear into the wrapping paper of the gifts and shred it to tiny pieces and played with her new walkers and books for the rest of the party. Then like all sugar highs she crashed hard into a long nap right after the Thanksgiving meal. John's best friend was thoughtful enough to open up a trust fund for her in her name so that when she turns 18 she will have some money in savings for college, which I thought was an awesome gift idea, especially coming from someone who does not have any kids yet. We will make it a point to add a little to it every holiday. All in all I couldn't have asked for it to go any better even though the cake design didn't quite make it! We had warm memories, great food, awesome photos, and lots of friends and family to share the holiday with! Who could ask for anything more? Happy Birthday Bailey!!!

in one year

2009-11-18T20:32:00.001-08:00

November 2009: 11 months old

Over the course of this year I have written about the things Bailey has learned from her first giggles, clapping, eating solids, saying Mama, rolling over, waiving, new teeth, crawling, pulling herself up to a stand and most recently standing for brief moments unsupported and climbing up on furniture. If I sit here and think about it long enough I could probably write a list a mile long of Bailey developments, but if you have been following this blog you already know these things. She has come a long way from that tiny little chicken-legged newborn baby I brought home from the hospital those first days of life observing the world through new eyes, taking it all in. But of all the things she has learned, I think she has actually taught me more than I would have ever guessed. No amount of babysitting or daycare jobs can prepare you for the job of taking care of a newborn baby. I never thought that once she arrived that I would feel so afraid of her. I realized fully at that moment that I was in charge of this new life and her well being and that we were experiencing a new world together, something I had never thought about in that perspective. I learned that the fear of losing your baby starts early on and will probably never go away. I learned that nursing a baby can go horribly wrong for a while but with enough patience and determination it really does help keep those hormones in check and bring back those warm fuzzy feelings even at the most trying times. I learned how little sleep one can function off of and it not even matter because God has blessed you and touched you so deeply with the love you feel for your little one that you know if you merely blink the baby days will be over. I learned the ridiculous amount of pride you can feel as parents when your baby does a new trick, like sleeping in her crib for the first time throughout the night. I learned that the amount of love a human heart can hold has no boundaries once you have children. I figured out why people get so emotional with movies, listening to music, or even reading a quote through the eyes and ears of a parent. I learned that as a mom when your baby cries it triggers something inside of you to yearn to fix it, not because the sound annoys you but because your heart is breaking with them. I have realized that even though it is so hard to watch your baby grow that it is also the most amazing thing to watch them develop into a little person. I have learned that everything is a phase even if you don't want it to be. And most of all I learned how important a year is!

Mommy and Daddy love you so much Bailey. This has been the best year of our lives thanks to you sweetheart!

Baby Shower Cake

2009-11-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

My mom ordered a baby shower cake for a co-worker's shower and I just finished it up tonight. Bree and I came up with the idea of doing a diaper bag for this cake and I think it came out really sweet. Shower cake for baby Addison, check... birthday cake, next!

there is a bottle and a bear in the front pockets

Birthday Photo Shoot

2009-11-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

November: 11 months old

I did a mini photo shoot for Bailey's birthday invites. We wish everyone could make it, sorry we had to plan it on Thanksgiving I know that means that my Austin gang won't be there. I wish we could come down for a visit soon, but I know John's schedule is packed and Candi has been busy as a substitute teacher at Bella's school. I will be hosting both Bailey's birthday party and Thanksgiving this year! I am so thankful we have our new home to share all of these happy memories in! We feel so blessed!

Someone may already be spoiled thanks to Mommy friends who donated outgrown toys and relatives who love us ;)Upside down LOLLooking at her baby book... we've come so far, awe!Chewing on Mr. GiraffeShe loves her Daddy! And she is his world!kneeling like a big kid... getting into my camera equipment

Sleepy baby... time to wrap up :)

looking toddlerish

2009-11-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

November 2009: 11 months old

These are just a few snaps off my cell because she was looking cute and kinda toddlerish all of a sudden. She has found a favorite show this week... Yo Gabba Gabba, that and the Granimals commercial are the only kid shows that hold her attention. She is now weening over to whole Milk because she has gone on nursing strike, but the only problem is she hates it. I am trying to trick her into liking it... any tips? I have tried mixing with different juices but she hates it... so far the only thing that gets her to drink any amount of it is to mix with Carnation instant breakfast. The only thing she hates worse than milk is formula :( this has made the bed time routine kinda rough lately, but at least she LOVES yogurt and cheese so I know she is getting calcium daily.

I believe we will be doing her first birthday party on Thanksgiving, which is the day after her birthday this year, next year her birthday will actually fall ON Thanksgiving. As we knew this will make it hard in planning birthdays with Dadda because Best Buy seems very needy around Thanksgiving. He was not able to get a weekend day before Thanksgiving off to plan a party and once it hits he DEFINITELY will not be able to get a weekend day off so we figure this way he can't be forced to come in to work no matter what if we do it on the holiday itself. Anyway I know this means most everyone else will probably not be able to come :( but all are invited to celebrate and to eat.

Halloween

2009-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

October 2009: 11 months old

We did most of our Halloween celebration the night before. We met up with our friends Bree and Matt along with their littles and a few others at the square in Mckinney. I ran late as always, this time because Bailey has been pulling some late nights from the new teeth in combo of my lingering cold and sinus pressure made the two of us pass out for a late afternoon nap. We got there in time to see some of the trick or treaters running around, took some photos next to some of the fun shops and tour some of the cool "haunted" historical homes, and then we met up with the Harris Family for dinner at Fudds. All in all it was a fun night and Bailey rocked her pink leopard costume. She ended up being a pink leopard for Halloween because she got a little mini build a bear pink leopard at Mcdonalds (it was my happy meal toy, but I shared like a good mommy lol) and she has loved it all month so when I saw the costume I decided she needed it.

Hope everyone else had a fun and safe Halloween!! xoxox

Pumpkins!

2009-11-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

October 2009: 11 months old

We did pumpkins at the Carminati's again this year. Last year I was very pregnant and had a hard time carving that pumpkin with my huge baby bump, but this year it was still challenging having a little "helper". So I opted to do a more craftier styled pumpkins for safety and to be a little easier. We got three pumpkins, but John was banned from carving this year since he mutilated last year's pumpkin. He didn't seem to mind. Bailey and Bella created the little pumpkin together and I did the other two.

Pumpkin Patch Pics

2009-10-28T09:48:00.003-07:00

October 2009: 11 months old

Bailey and I went to the Dallas Arboretum with Holly and Ian yesterday. Turned out to be a beautiful day to go, sunny, not too windy, no rain! I got a lot of cute pics, but I struggled with light all day because it was soo bright, that many of them were over exposed or the babies were squinting in the sun. This was my first trip to the Arboretum, and I absolutely LOVE it! It is so beautiful and interesting, lots of cool photo opps! For a Fall lover, this was a dream with all the fall flowers and pumpkins EVERYWHERE and trees! They even had a cool hut made out of pumpkins, but unfortunately those pics didn't come out because of over exposure. I wish I had been feeling better, I have a cold that's making me all stuffy and sneezy, I wanna go back!!These are just a few of my faves :) the full album is on my facebook. ENJOY!

Sorry!

2009-10-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

October 2009: 11 months old

Sorry for the lack of updates! It's been a crazy few months! Bailey is now 11 months old! She is crawling super fast now on all fours, seldom drags herself across the floor anymore. She has discovered how cool it is to get into things ie. the kitchen cabinets, drawers, shelves, entertainment centers, toy boxes, etc. It is a whole new world tearing through these things and discovering the treasures they hold. Definitely time to upgrade the baby proofing! She has developed quite the personality these days playing with toys and playing games of chase and peak a boo with me. And if I am laying on the ground playing with toys with her she finds it entertaining to crawl and climb all over me LOL! She has even started to climb up into my lap to play with her toys, or to climb up me for a cuddle from time to time. She adores Mr. Kitty, who is still very afraid of her and wants nothing to do with her... I think it's the challenge that she loves. Her favorite toy is the Leap Frog Learn and Groove activity table, so cute to watch her punch the buttons and shake her booty. She hasn't shown much interest in TV or kids' shows yet, however she does seem to like that new show Glee, guess it's all the music that draws her attention. And over the last couple of weeks 4 of her top teeth have all cut through, which is why I've had little time to update! One of my best friends, Holly, her son, Ian, and Bailey and I will be headed to the Dallas Arboretum this week to do a pumpkin patch photo shoot of our littles, so I'll be posting those Fall pics soon! Plus I just ordered her Fall/Winter wardrobe off eBay and I am sure when they arrive I will want to play dress up with her and take lots of pics LOL because I'm silly like that. so yeah up to date photos coming soon!

Making plans for Bailey's first birthday!! Can't believe that is coming up in exactly one month!! YIKES time flies!! I believe we will be doing her party the weekend before Thanksgiving since John will definitely be working the weekend of, but he's acting like he can't even get that off so we are still trying to work out an official date. As soon as I know I will be sending invites out to everyone and we hope you all can make it! Her cake will rock for sure hehe!

Etsy Handmades 2

2009-10-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

On the Ms. Modern's blog, she is doing a new Halloween give away daily and winners will be announced on Halloween. Today she is featuring A Mother's Crochet http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5674943, who does the cutest handmade crochet hats, booties, no slip hair clips, cardigans, and neck warmers. If you know me, you know I am a sucker for a baby in knit, so you know I have to spread the word about the cuteness to all you expecting mommies following my blog! The cutest newborn pics are those sweet squishy faced babies with the fun oversized knit hats!!! Love them!!! Hehehe check them out!!!

Ms. Modern has conducted an interview with her on the give away blog and she is giving away a kitty crochet hat any size on Halloween if you are interested in entering!

http://msmodern.com/?p=2120&cpage=1#comment-6063

Etsy handmades

2009-10-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of hand made products, and was so excited when I stumbled upon an ad on facebook that peaked my interest. It was for Southern Alchemy which is a company ran by a lady named Marcee who makes custom organic handmade soaps, room sprays, roll on perfumes and my favorite slow burning soy candles. I just placed a big order for soy candles to fill our new home with yummy scents such as Pumpkin Crunch Cake, Coffee Ice Cream, Harvest (fall leaves scent), Red Velvet Cake, Apple Cider, and Frosted Cupcakes. And that was my narrowed down list because she had so many exciting sounding flavors and she describes what scents are in each such as the Red Velvet Cake is a combination of buttercream, chocolate, and vanilla in the scent notes. I can't wait to try them! Her site is http://www.SouthernAlchemy.etsy.com

She is also doing a give away for two hand made fall flavored soy candles, two handmade room/body sprays, one handmade scent sachet, and one handmade soap (a $32 value) on

along with many other registered Etsy sellers as a huge Halloween giveaway extravaganza! Be sure to check it out!

Crazy Exciting Week!!

2009-09-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 10 months old!!

This week has been so hectic, but we are in the middle of so many awesome new adventures all at once!! I feel so incredibly blessed these last couple of years with all of the new life changes. Tomorrow we close on our brand new house! We have everything packed and ready to go, so first thing in the morning we will be loading it all into the moving truck and headed off to our new home for final walk and closing. It will be a LONG day, but we are so stoked! We have been talking about buying a house for a couple years now, and have worked super hard to stick to a tight budget to pay off anything and everything on our credit to make this happen. It's nice to close that chapter and open a new one, right in time for Bailey's 10 month birthday! Let me know if you need the address, I'll try to remember to shoot out an e-mail to everyone.

Bree and I have been working like crazy on cakes, cakes and more cakes! I really really love this job. I believe I have found my calling. It's the best creative outlet that I have found for my adult life so far, and makes me feel like I am being true to myself. A nice mixture of sales and art, two things that I am excellent at. We had two really big sculpture projects these last couple of weeks that have added to the chaos of the move, but were really a great learning experience for me. One was a big awesome suitcase for a client's mom's 70th birthday party. She is a wedding coordinator for her church and wants to use us as her exclusive cake vendor! The other was a book cake that I got to do a lot of the art work for and even deliver. Design wise it seemed simple, but it was definitely a challenge and a really big learning experience from start to finish. The cool thing about that cake's delivery is that it was done at a Brazilian Restaurant and both the staff and customers were really excited about it! Several of them quizzed me about doing cakes for some of their upcoming celebrations, so we may have some additional orders just off that delivery! I still have a lot to learn, and I need to practice covering cakes and sculptures because Bree usually handles that part, which is definitely the tricky part, but so far has been wonderful!

Today we did our first bridal show out in Rockwall and it couldn't have gone better! We were intimidated at first at the cake competitions' booths and displays, but it turns out that the brides and vendors couldn't stop talking about how tasty our samples were. In fact the competition kept hearing clients talk about how good ours tasted that they had to come over and try for themselves! That is really cool, because taste is definitely important! We then realized by the comments and peaked interest, that the brides were typically in our age group and seemed naturally drawn to our style cakes vs. the competition so even though we were small we made a big impact. If we can close enough of our brides from the show, then we have a shot of opening up our store by this next wedding season. We walked away feeling like we did an excellent job and that if anything we were way over prepared, which is a great feeling.

Today John also started at his new store. This store is definitely going to be a challenge for him, but I know he can do it! If he can get this store turned around through out the holiday season, then he will definitely be offered a gm position in 2010 so it's a really good opportunity! His first day was exhausting, but he felt really good about his experience. We have a lot of good things in the works, it's all very exciting!

Keyboard Pounders

2009-09-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

Bailey is now showing A LOT of interest in the laptop. She is constantly trying to punch the buttons when she spots it open, and if we are not paying attention and she gets a hold of it then she can reprogram it with in minutes. Once she actually managed to flip the images on the screen so they no longer displayed horizontally but appeared vertical... I didn't even know that was possible. Anyways I downloaded her her very own program made just for babies called baby keyboard pounders. It basically looks like a screen saver and whenever she hits a key a cute little butterfly or flower or fish will appear to the tune of classical music. She LOVES it! And I love that it was free :o)

More Photographic Evidence

2009-09-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

Now when I go to get Bailey out of her crib she is standing up ready to greet me. Today I greeted her with the camera after her morning nap. Love the puffy sleepy baby eyes!

Cruising like a Big Baby!

2009-09-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

As promised, the photographic evidence of Bay's new trick. I do believe it has made her more demanding LOL, but I am a proud Mama!! Yay B!!!

Now that she can climb up to a stand, she feels the need to investigate anything in my hands, camera, laptop, remote, dinner, etc. I don't know what she does to the computer, but if she get her hands on it she can reprogram the whole thing within minutes, crazy!

and a few extras to show how big she is getting :o)

FYI monkey feet help support bottles

A Little Motivation

2009-09-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

Bailey seems to take her time hitting the physical milestones. From observing her, I don't necessarily think that it's because she's not physically capable of actually getting there, it seems she is just very cautious about her own capabilities. Don't get me wrong, she's a little dare devil when it comes to playing and flying through the air and jumping... she will totally be a little roller coaster kiddo like her Mama, but when it comes to her doing stuff on her own without my help she gets a little hesitant. With that being said, we do our best to encourage her independence and self confidence and our little one is coming around. Today she finally hit the milestone of pulling herself up to her feet on her own!! For the last few days I have noticed her pulling herself up on her knees, but she didn't dare try to step up to her feet until this evening. All it took, was me putting something that she wanted, but I did not necessarily want her having, up on the couch away from little grabby baby hands. The remote, a baby's holy grail of living room objects it seems. She spotted me trying to hide it from her and with in minutes I see her climb up on her tipsy toes to stretch across the couch and snag that remote. Once her treasure was in her hands she actually stood there, with both hands on the remote, and all her weight on her feet! This lasted for just about 10 seconds until she noticed Daddy coming around the corner to sneak a peak at Bailey's newest trick, and then she promptly tumbled down. YAY Bailey!! You did it!!!!Seeing as how this is a new milestone that was just hit tonight, I don't actually have any photographic evidence of it at this time. As she gains confidence in her ability to stand I will be sure to snap some pics and post, but for now enjoy some cute Bailey head shots and try to imagine the greatness of the moment so that you too can share the pride we feel for our little one ;o)

Bailey and John

2009-09-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

Bailey is so lucky to have a Daddy that loves her so much and is always so happy to spend time with her. He looks forward to seeing her all day long and the moment he walks through the door home from work they are inseparable. If he has a late shift then he wakes up with her in the morning to feed her breakfast and play a little before he leaves for the day. I try to snap pics when I can of the two of them because I know they will mean so much to her later in life.

At the park

2009-09-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

We celebrated my friend Bree's daughter Colbi's 2nd birthday at the park! I served as a photographer for the day, and little Bailey not only met another Bailey but had an excellent time watching the kiddos run around and finding leaves on the ground (to try and eat of course). I just love her little party outfit, so cute!

So Petite!

2009-09-04T16:31:00.001-07:00

September 2009: 9 months old

Bailey had her 9 months check up this week... 9 months crazy! Time is slipping by so very quickly it just blows my mind. She measured in at 27 1/4 inches which keeps her close to the 50th percentile, head measures in at 45 inches which is 75th percentile LOL, and her weight is 16.2 pounds which is in the less than 10%. ???? How could this be??? My baby eats like crazy! Still breast feeding probably 5-6 times per day, has 2-3 bottles of juice and yogurt drinks, 6 jars of baby food, and snacks in between! All she does is eat it seems! I thought for sure her weight was going to have a huge spike this check up because of all the solids she eats so I am pretty surprised by this. Everything is on target, the next thing we should be anticipating from her is getting into a sit position on her own and pulling up to a stand.

Rangers Game

2009-08-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

August 2009: 8 months old

Johnny came home the other night with some Texas Rangers Game tickets that he had left over from work so we invited the Carminatis to come out for a fun summer family outing. Not only did we get a chance to hang out at the cool Ballpark in Arlington but we also had a great view of the new Cowboy's stadium, so pretty! Bailey enjoyed most of it until people started doing the wave, and then she freaked a little :( by that point it was a little past her bed time so John and I had to cut out early. But we did have a lot of fun eating hot dogs and cheering at the game! We hope to go again soon!

Picture Taken by Bella Carminati, pretty good!!

Daddy and Bailey at the game <3

Messy little B after a Nutragrain Bar... perhaps a bad snack choice for a Baseball game LOL

Miss Bella happily chowing down on a ball park hot dog

Crawling

2009-08-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

August 2009: 8 months old

The crawling started not long after we returned home from Austin. She looked like she was trying to maneuver herself around while we were at Sally's for dinner, but she didn't quite master the commando crawl until a few days later. Now she just scoots around on the floor all over the place, and has those target eyes that finds the things that she shouldn't have (such as the remote control, shoes, pens, a drink... anything John leaves laying around LOL) and takes off after it like the ninja baby she is. Yesterday, while I was wrapped up in taking a cake order via e-mail, she had her first taste of cat food. I looked up from the computer realizing how quiet it seemed... that eerie it's too quiet feeling, and found her around the corner next to the cat food bowl with all off Mr. Kitty's food scattered around her, none in the bowl. She laughed hysterically when I came around the corner, and as I picked her up I notice that little jaw casually moving, not the in your face I am eating something, but the trying to hide the fact that I have something in my mouth. That little sneak! LOL! I dug around in her mouth and found a piece of Mr. Kitty's food and as I pulled it out of her mouth she laughed again. Oh boy, this one's going to be trouble!My documentation of Bailey tumbling out of her sit position into a crawl... to attack the camera of course LOL. I also discovered her doing the "creep" where she was up on all fours rocking back and forth, it will only be a matter of time for her to have the typical crawl down... and then she will be much faster. Look out Mr. Kitty, here she comes!!

8 months is so cool!

2009-08-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

August 2009: 8 months old

Bailey is getting so big! I can't believe it! She seems to be learning new little things much more rapidly. And all it takes is for her to figure it out one time and she will have it down pat. She is sitting really well now, has figured out how to lean on her arms. She still tumbles at times, but it seems to be more on purpose these days. She prefers to be on her stomach or back vs. sitting but she definitely has that milestone mastered. She has also started crawling more of a comando style dragging her body along the floor, I'll get into that more on the next post. She makes a buzzy noise with lips vs. just the spit bubble raspberries she had been blowing previously, the noise is kind of high pitched like a little bird. And she has started eating little finger snacks, I may have mentioned that already, I forget, but it's kind of a big deal I guess. Oh and the cutest thing she does is blow kisses with the kissy noise... she hasn't learned to kiss us, that is still the open mouth "I'm going to eat you" thing that babies do LOL.Ok, so I usually do not feed Bailey her snacks on the floor, I did this more for the picture aspect. She looked so cute with her little pj body that I didn't want to take away from it with the bumbo seat. I figured she sticks all of her toys in her mouth that lay on the floor so it can't be much different right?

Photo Session

2009-08-01T22:22:00.000-07:00

July 2009: 8 months old

Bailey is such a sweet girl with lots of personality these days! She is quite the happy baby and seems to love new people, other children, and animals. She loves to be held, but is also happy to roll around on the floor playing with her toys. Over the last couple of days she has shown signs of crawling, not on hands and knees, it looks more like the yoga plank position as she pushes off with her toes. So big! We love this little lady sooo much!