Beach pics and fun

Mommy is working on doing this child's hair. It's getting easier! She just won't sit still, ever.

The saga continues between these two. They're growing more and more in love each day. Seriously, she kisses and hugs all over him and he reaches for her and loves on her too. It's so sweet to watch!

Cutie girl in her bathing suit and hat! She was ready for the beach.

I just think this is a cute little smirk.

She didn't mind the water too much but the sand was a deal-breaker for her. She did not want to be put down to walk in it or even touch it. It was very funny to see her touch the sand and then look at us like, "Get it off! Why is it still there!?!" I thought she'd get used to it and she did get used to the water more but the sand is one that we'll need to continue to work on.

She wanted Nana, Poppy, Mama, Poppy, Nana, Mama, Poppy, Nana, Nana. She just went back and forth the whole 4 days we were there. She wasn't happy in anyone's arms unless she was reaching for someone else.

The poor baby was overstimulated! She wasn't feeling very well while we were there anyway because she was getting over an ear infection and a mild cold.

Poor Bailey couldn't be seen past the palm trees! We had a great time at Margaritaville. She colored on a kids menu and even had her very first kids meal of grilled cheese and french fries. Of course she barely ate any because she was too busy eating everyone else's food. She did enjoy it again the next day for lunch though, haha.

She got her first pair of sunglasses this week and loves to look cool in them!

She had an ear infection that we go for a follow up on this Thursday. I'm hoping it's gone but she was tugging at her ear pretty hard tonight so we'll see. Then in two weeks she has her 15 month well baby visit because she's 15 months old now! Ahhh, where did the time go!?

Her newest things are picking her nose, saying "shhhh" if her beau is asleep or anyone is whispering, saying "ow!" even when she isn't hurt, growing more teeth (13 and counting!), and attempting to do the motions to The Wheels on the Bus song. She's such a handful these days. Especially because she just has so much attitude. She's hitting a lot more and I just keep telling her no and making her "say" sorry. When she continues, I put her in the pack n play for a minute of time out. Who knows if any of that is working but 99% of the time she's my sweet Bailey girl!

Finally an update

Bailey helped me prepare for Grandma's arrival. I made her bed, she took out all of Daddy's books so she might have some good reading material.

Bailey visited with Grandma for a little while. They walked a lot like this. She doesn't even need to do this anymore because that next week she just took off walking. She officially walks more than crawls. Just like everything else, once she wanted to do it she mastered it quickly. One day about two weeks ago she just took off and every day she has been walking more than the next.

She still enjoys watching the Daddy dvd every night on TV.

We just take lots of silly pictures. Lately she's more interested in looking at the pictures on the camera than smiling for it.

Well, Mommy gave up on potty training. She still sometimes will do our sign for it and I'll take her but it was just too much for me at the time that I started it. I plan to do it some time in the coming months. Now that she's walking it will be significantly easier too. I may or may not wait until Mike gets home. She's ready, I just wasn't.

We've been spending lots of time with Heather and Bailey's Beau (Pilot). She just loves this kid. Mostly she pets him and tries to give him his paci but every so often she just gets too rough. Don't worry about Beau though, he's quite durable and loves her a lot too. Seeing them together is so sweet and special. He just smiles up at her and looks for her when she walks away. So sweet!

See? Look at this kid loving her boy.

After bath time she sits in the sink so I can dry her off a little. She's so silly. This night she decided she needed my toothbrush and my comb, as well as the floss.

It's been a long time since I've updated because we've just been busy and it seems like writing in here is such a chore! I just need to do it weekly instead of letting it build up. We have visited Nana and Poppy twice in the last month and even got a visit from Uncle Justin and Grandma last weekend. It's been a good month that has gone by fast.

Bailey walks all the time now and has fallen twice and busted her lip. Two days in a row! She's getting more used to it now but definitely still looks like a stumbling drunk sometimes, especially when she's tired. She is has developed an intense interest in belly buttons and has no sense of appropriateness, as she tries to study mine in public! She's also learning where her ears and nose are. She's got the ears down but nose is harder. And of course she knows where her belly button is. The funniest thing she's doing right now is saying yes to everything. She nods her head yes to everything except when someone wants to share food with her. She is adamantly against sharing food and will shake her head NO if you try! We're working on it, lol. She has about 14 or 15 teeth now. A very full mouth! My little girl is growing too big too fast!

Only three more months until Daddy is back. He had a bit of a close call this month. He got a concussion when someone in front of him stepped on an IED and he was thrown back from the blast. The soldier that stepped on it lost half of one of his legs but will be ok. It was very scary receiving that news but we continue to pray for his safety and for no more close calls. Three months! We're 75% done!

Success!

Just updating to say potty time is a success! Yesterday after I posted, she went on the potty at 4:00 and stayed dry until 6:00 when she went again. This morning she woke up at 5:50 am dry, I put her on the potty and she went immediately! Since then she's gone once more. This kid is a rock star! We went to buy training panties and plastic covers this morning and some pull ups for just in case times. I had no idea she would do this well but looks like we're on our way!

Potty Time!

How cute is this kid with her hair curling up?!

That's my sweet girl!

We've had a rough week with sleep. Last night and Wednesday night Bailey didn't get to sleep until about 9:00, which is an hour and a half past her bed time. She just was whiny and needed to be rocked and held. Usually she goes right down and soothes herself to sleep but not those nights. As a result, we're trying something new today. I kept her up rather than putting her down for her usual 9:30 am nap. She ate lunch at 11:30 and then down for her (hopefully much longer) nap at noon. She's been asleep for an hour and I hope to get at least one more hour! So I guess this means she's ready for only one nap. I'm really hoping this works to help at night too and maybe even get her to sleep a little later than 6:00 am!

Last night while I was cooking our dinner she decided she needed to enjoy her water inside her old bouncer that's still out because Pilot uses it when he's over. Silly girl.

One morning this week Bailey woke up with a dry diaper and had been dry for 14 hours! After freaking out and calling the nurse line to hear that if she didn't go in a couple hours I needed to take her to the ER, she finally peed. As a result, I figured this meant we could start trying with the potty. So we went to Target yesterday and bought a potty and some special potty treats (organic vanilla flavored smiley faces, lol, she thinks they're treats) and we've already spent a while on the potty in the past 24 hours. No pee yet but at least she's very receptive to it. We have had a great time looking at pictures on the camera, reading books, and playing her piano.

This week Bailey cut her 10th tooth. She now has two molars and a bunch of other teeth! No walking since the once she walked with Mike and then the once she did it with me a couple weeks ago. She's getting more brave about standing without holding onto things but still no walking. I feel like she may never walk again!

She got two shots this week too and they definitely affected her this time. She was very whiny and didn't sleep well at all. I hated every second of it because I knew she was sore and feeling terrible. It wasn't fun at all. She didn't scream at the sight of the doctor's office but I'm afraid she will next month when we have to go.

In other news, deployment is 8 months down and 4 to go! It's been a rough month but I'm happy that May is here and we're one month closer to seeing Mike again.

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.