nothing much

Bailey sits on her chair to watch Daddy sometimes. Even though Mike recorded 3 more DVD's for her while he was home, she doesn't like them nearly as much because I think she just grew so used to the same one over and over that it's like a comfort thing.

Lately I've been obsessed with taking pictures of her sleeping because it's just too cute to me! This is a picture of her foot hanging out of the crib. She always sleeps every which way.

Sometimes I just want to go wake her up and cuddle with her because she looks so cute and sweet!

Not much going on here, just wanted to update. We went to Bailey's allergist today and he said she's doing great. We haven't needed breathing treatments in over a month and no more night time coughing fits. Praise God! She'll go to the doctor on Friday for her first shot-only visit. She'll be getting Hib and Pc. I'm hoping she does ok with them!

A while ago when I went home I got her a bunch of different toys, including a rocking zebra (that she recently figured out how to rock herself on - so smart!), some little people toys, and a leap frog table. She loves them all and is just learning every day. She amazes me and other people around her by what she knows. She uses brushes and combs to try to brush her hair, tried to use crayons to color in a coloring book, and knows when we stop the car that the seat belt is coming off of her. She's too smart. She also throws both arms up when we say "woohoo!!" and folds her hands when we say it's time to pray. And recently she's been opening her mouth really big and putting her hand over it like she's shocked by something, lol. I need to get some videos of these things because I've been so slack about doing that recently!

the "big changes" plus

After much thought, I decided last week to quit one of my jobs. I'll be done working with Sawyer in July. The reason is that the other family I work with (the one that babysits Bailey) won't be using Heather and me to help with their homeschooling so Debbie (the mom) won't have as much time to watch Bailey. Of course I could have found other ways around the childcare issue, I felt like this is what I had really been praying for. It's my next step. I'd been praying for the "next step" for 4 months now and here it is. So I'll be staying home more with Bailey and working 20 hours or less a week. It's perfect timing because it's just the right amount of time to train my replacement, Mike will be home shortly after I quit so we'll have more time to be together, and Bailey will stop taking her morning nap soon and we'll have all of our mornings together. It's going to be fantastic!

Those were the big changes I was talking about in the last post. But after talking to Mike yesterday, seems like maybe there are some other changes in our future as well. Since it's the military it's ALL subject to change but looks like he's already slotted for an October 2011 deployment to Afghanistan. He's looking for ways out of it, which could include moving for a 2 year assignment as a drill sgt. We want to be where God wants us. I just hope God doesn't want us in the armpit of the south (Ft. Benning - Columbus, GA), lol. We'll see in His time, I suppose.

Lots of pics and exciting stuff

Bailey's spring basket. It was full of fun stuff like flip flops, jammies, Easter books, prayer books and cd's, a puzzle, bath letters and numbers, and even two dvd's! Daddy and I went WAY overboard on her first basket! Oh well, only live once. Plus, we didn't make her one last year so we really had to do it up right =)

She's not too sure about it at first but it didn't take her long to dig in.

And like everything else, it ended up all over the floor. I really loved the basket and wanted to get her one that we could use over and over. Unfortunately, it smelled like moth balls and smelled up everything I put it near so it had to be trashed. Oh well, we'll try again next year.

Her first Easter egg hunt at Kate's party on Saturday. They "hid" some special eggs in the living room just for the little ones and Bailey actually did a good job of picking them up and putting them in her basket. My big girl.

I just thought she looked funny and cute in this picture. She sleeps some silly ways. She's wearing a "The Flash" t-shirt because she spit up on the shirt that matched her pants. Daddy will be proud. He insisted we buy this shirt for her when he saw it a year ago. It makes a nice sleep shirt for her.

Another sleeping picture. Except this one is funny because she's laying sideways in the crib so her head touched one set of bars and her feet hung out of the other. Super cute feet, if I do say so myself. This week she gave me quite a scare though! I went into her room after nap to get her up and she was crying. I tried to pull her out but one of her big fat legs was stuck in between the bars. Scared the mess out of me! I had to "hercules" the bars apart and pull her leg up and out. I'm hoping she doesn't try that again.

Ok, just look at that crazy baby's hair. She had a bath last night after a lot of playing outside with Nana and Poppy yesterday. There was so much pollen out there that her eyes were watering like she was crying and her nose was running too. Poor baby but she enjoyed herself doing laps around the pool and being pushed by Nana on her riding toy. So needless to say, she needed a bath. She got to take one with Lilly and then I made her hair look silly. Even she had to laugh!

I just can't even believe this picture. She looks just like a big grown up kid here. When did I get a 13 month old baby?!?! But check out that Don King hair!

In the weeks since Mike left, we've been readjusting. Me more than her, probably. It was a rough few days at first but nothing good friends, food, and distractions from work couldn't get me through. Bailey definitely keeps me busy too. She now has 8 teeth, one of which is a molar! She's still not walking but she can stand up on her own for a while now and I keep having dreams of her just taking off. She's not comfortable enough with it yet but she's getting there, I think.

Last week we had some problems with her spitting up. One day I even took off work because I thought she had a stomach bug. Looks like she has some reflux. She was having a rough week because of it being clingy and more whiny than usual but she seems to have slowed down and only spit up once this whole weekend. I pray it gets better and she doesn't have to go on medicine!

Exciting news! We got our professional photos back from the photo shoot we had while Mike was here. Well, we got a slide show of them. For anyone that wishes to see, the link is :
http://slideshow.mattmcgrawphotography.com/hermannfamily/
The pictures are amazing and I can't wait to get prints made! I was so please with his work and can't wait to see what Mike thinks of them!

Big changes are happening in my life and I won't write about them here yet because I haven't been able to talk to some key people about them yet but it's exciting stuff and I'm nervous and happy to see what these things bring. All I have to say is that God is good and He has the perfect plan! I'm just in it for the ride.