Another Half Birthday!

Today is a big day....it's Bailey's one and a half birthday! You know me, I love all these milestones, so we couldn't let the day go without doing a little celebrating...
We woke up late, had breakfast, watched a little bit of Dora, and then headed out to Dr. McCowan's office for Bailey's 18 month check up! Daddy met us there just in time to fill out Bailey's paperwork. (with Brooke's help)
They called us back and Bailey was less than thrilled with the nurse assigned to her.

She cried really big while they did all the measurements! She weighed in at 24 pounds, was 32 inches long, and her head circumference was 19 inches. She is very tall for her age and has big brains! She is very average weight wise.

After the nurse left, the girls had a big time. They giggled and giggled as they went up and down the step ladder and then moved on to spinning around and around on Dr. McCowan stool. After a while Dr. Andy came in and gave Miss Bailey the look over. She was a perfect patient for him....I was so proud! He checked her from head to toe and gave us the thumbs up....impeccable!
Bailey did have to get a few immunizations, so the girls played some more while waiting on the shots! They pretended to call people on their fake cells and took turns applying pretend make up. My Bailey is getting so big. She growing and changing so much that I can hardly call her a baby anymore!

I just adore being with her and love seeing what new things she is going to get into on a daily basis!

Being outside is still one of her favorite pastimes. She begs to be outside and loves to play hard...she can hang with the best of them. She is very hands on, but just requests to be cleaned in between all the fun. I try to get her to embrace the dirt...go barefoot...get a little grass between the toes, but NO...shoes are a must for this girl!

Another thing she is into right now is BOOKS. She just can't seem to get enough...I am hoping all of the book "reading" she does will help increase her vocabulary. Dr. McCowan says she really needs to have a huge explosion in her speech development between now and age two. She really doesn't say much, maybe only 15-20 words, but understands it ALL!

She loves to go bye-bye and is ready at the drop of a hat. She can entertain herself quietly, be content playing with others, and is really fun to be around for the most part, but can certainly throw a ginormous fit if things don't go her way! Hmmm...I wonder where she gets that from? ;-)
Anyway, the nurses took forever, but did finally come back into administer the booster shots and Miss Bailey was surprisingly very compliant this time.

My sweet angel baby did not even cry, whine, or flinch. What a trooper! We decided to head to Jason's deli for lunch, cause this birthday girl needed a cupcake and some ice cream for being so darn tough.
We ordered our favorites and tried to share with Bailey, but she is still eating baby food for the most part. Now don't get me wrong, she will eat table food, but only if it is dessert! She loves love to feed herself and I let her sometimes if time or making a mess it not a concern. Today, since it was her 1/2 b-day, I let her.

She has watched Big Sister Brooke eat her ice cream cone with a spoon so much that today she insisted on getting a cone with a spoon too....such a little copy cat.

We had a great lunch with daddy on Lakeshore and then we headed to Babies R Us for a little shopping...you know since we were right there and all. I love to buy the girls matching clothes at Babies R Us, but my big girl Brooke has out grown most of their size 48 month clothes. I am so sad that she is too big for Babies R Us. Why can they stay little for longer?
I did manage to find a few outfits that the big girl could squeeze into in order to match her little sissy and then we decided to head home for a nap. Can you believe my 18 month old still naps in her aquarium bouncer?!

After our nap, we played outside on the porch while we were waiting for daddy to get home. Finally, he arrived home and Miss Bailey got her 1/2 birthday gift!
A new car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay...that girl LOVED it! She played in it for the longest time...we had to drag her out kicking and screaming for a bath at bedtime.
What a great day we had celebrating the fabulous 18 months that we have shared with Miss Bailey here on earth. How thankful I am for this time with my baby girl...thank you Father for my daughter Bailey Grace!

***Update, May 8*****
Today hubby opened the dishwasher and asked why all the dishes were PINK??? My Bailey girl is so busy and INTO EVERYTHING, so it didn't take me long to figure out that she put a pink crayon (had to be pink...that's our favorite color around here;) in the dishwasher.
Do not ever try this at home...it is NOT good!
All of the dishes turned pink!!!! Washed again and the glassware came clean, but the plastic dishes had a permanent pink waxy/dusty/film. They all had to be tossed...good thing I love that girl bunches! ;-)

****Another Update, May 21st**** Had to call poison control again! This time it was Juniper Breeze~Bath and Body Works~Body Splash...Bailey took it off the table and she was pretending to spray it. The top was on and so I figured that would be fine. I thought she looked cute walking around pretending to spray it on her like her Momma does. Next thing you know, I look over and she has it in her mouth....top off...sucking on it like a sippy cup...seemed to like it too! I grabbed it from her and it was pouring out...her breath had a very strong Juniper Breeze scent....it about knocked me over. I quickly called poison control. The lady that answered was very high strung for a poison control operator. (not at all what I usually get when I call;-)She got really worked up and did not try to calm me whatsoever...thankfully I wasn't a first time offender, so I was pretty confident that my baby would be ok and so I didn't freak out too much. After going back and forth with her, she made me say that I was sure that Bailey drank less than a teaspoon. If I didn't say it she would have made us go to the ER. We watched for signs of alcohol poisoning and after an hour of being her silly, giggly self, the poison control lady called back and assured us that she must be fine!

Whew...I am hoping this was the last call!!!!!!!

An Alternate Easter

This Easter was not exactly how we planned...sometimes that is just how it goes!

We were planning to go to Baton Rouge for Easter weekend, but the day before we were scheduled to leave, my mom found out that she has shingles and so we thought that it would be in the girls' best interest to not go to Mimi's house and to just stay here in Birmingham. We were all really disappointed, to miss the fun in Baton Rouge, but we found some alternate plans and ended up having plenty of egg hunts and Easter festivities to keep us busy.

The first egg hunt we participated in was on Wednesday at the Alabaster library...

Oh and let me just state for the record...I did let my girls wear white shoes all 4 days BEFORE Easter...I know I can't believe it either!

We took pics with Miss Spring and the Easter bunny. Needless to say, Miss Bailey was not a fan of the bunny!

But she did have a big time hunting the eggs. The girls got TONS and wouldn't you know, EVERY single one of them had pastel candy corn in them...they didn't seem to mind though...pure sugar...what's not to love!
After the hunt, I tried to get some pics of the girls by the azaleas, but they NEVER both look at the camera or smile cute at the same time! SO, we colored some Easter pics and then we went inside the library for a little book reading and computer time. (And Bailey sampled a few of the candy corns...)
Before too long, it was time for lunch, so we decided to go over to O'Charleys! We had a super great lunch with the Brand girls and then invited them over to our house to play for a while, but not before we paused to take a picture on the bench outside of O'Charley's. See...we can never get them to all look the same way at the same time! ;-)
The next day, was Brooke's 3K MDO egg hunt. I was supposed to be there at 11:30AM to hide the eggs, but there was a back up on the interstate as I was returning from running a few errands. Some of the other moms had to hide the eggs and I got there just in time to see the hunt! I snapped this pic on the way out to the playground...the kiddos were so excited!
Each child was asked to find 12 eggs. It was hard to stop at 12, but a good way to reinforce their counting skills!
After the hunt, they played a while. It was very chilly that morning, but by lunch it turned out to be a very sunny and hot day!So much so that the kids all worked up a sweat... Just in time for some lemonade and Easter cookies.
Bailey even got to join in on the fun...I dressed her in this pillow case dress that Brooke passed down to her. Here is Bailey hunting eggs at 17m...
Brooke wore the same dress to an M&MFF Easter play date at Stacey Rakestraw's house in April 2006. Here is Brooke hunting eggs at 15m.... It is so much fun looking back at all the old playgroup pictures....all the little ones have grown so much! I really need to get those in a scrapbook!

Sooooo, the next day was Good Friday. If we were in BR we were planning to go to the zoo, but Birmingham was forecasted for heavy rain. We decided we might better find an indoor activity. I spent most of the morning working on some bows and bracelets while daddy played with the girls. I made 6 bracelets and 6 bows! That was nice, because I usually don't get to take the time to work on any of my hobbies.

After getting my craft fix, it was time to get going....SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE! After much discussion, we decided to go for a late lunch/early dinner at Golden Corral and then we headed to the Bass Pro Shop in Leeds. There we took pics with the Easter Bunny...again, Bailey was less than thrilled! And Brooke even tried to pull some "I'm scared" drama, but I nipped that in the bud and before long she was "best friends" with the Easter bunny!
After pics, Brooke worked on a craft while Bailey and daddy looked around the store.
After the craft, Brooke and Bailey searched for eggs, but never found any...not even one! The Bass Pro Shop people must be serious about where they hide their eggs!?!
After hunting, we just spent some time exploring...the entire store! The live fish tank was amazing and the girls absolutely loved it. Do you see that big daddy one? No not the girls' daddy, the big daddy fish above his head...Whoa!Another favorite spot in the store was the babbling creek that had a fully mounted brown bear next to it...where we just had to pose for a pic. Daddy said he would only take one, but the first time he cut the bear's head off! What? He said he was trying to get our faces up close...Isn't the point of posing next to a bear to get the bear's head in the picture? I had to argue with hubby and convince him to take another. Obviously, he does not support my scrapbooking/photography hobby...no wonder I am so behind! Anyway, I love this bear pic....too bad I had to throw a fit to get it! Anyway, the girls had the best time playing by the creek and hanging with the bear. I am just thankful neither of them fell in the water with all the picture commotion!
The bear was a lot of fun, but the girls had the most fun playing in the hunting blind section of the store. They thought it was their own little city of forts. Here is my baby girl playing peek-a-boo with her big sissy! Is she precious, or what?
After we combed the entire store and didn't buy a thing, we decided that we might better head home to shower and get some rest before the next big day of events! It was after 9PM, by the time we got home and we were planning to be to our next hunt by 9AM!
On Saturday, we packed a picnic and headed to Veteran's Park in Alabaster for yet another egg hunt! There was tons of traffic and it took us a while to get there, but the kids were glad to go. Look at all those eggs!
The girls scored plenty of eggs and then it was time for some more fun. We jumped in the inflatables, talked with the clown, played a few games, and some of us even got a face painting.
We all had a great time, but agreed it was way TOO cold for a picnic! We decided to save our picnics for later and headed to O'Charley's for a nice hot lunch...INDOORS! The Brands went with us and we all had a very nice time. As a matter of fact, we had the same waiter that we had on Wednesday, the only difference is that this time we brought the daddies with us! We ate tons of food for cheap and then we all agreed that naps were the next order of the day.

I love my sleepin' sweet angel girl!
After naptime, it was time to dye eggs. Brooke had been asking and asking and asking all week long and it was FINALLY time! I let Brooke and Bailey both participate and they were such good little helpers! ;-) Brooke splashed the dye everywhere while Bailey smashed every egg she got her hands on, but I didn't expect anything less from a 4 and 1 year old dyeing eggs...it certainly was a lot of fun!
So the next day was Easter Sunday! Yay! Time for the best church service of the year, right?
Actually, we were so busy all week running around in the chilly weather that by the time that Easter Sunday rolled around, the girls and I were too sick to attend church. (BUMMER) Daddy had to go without us and we stayed home and had Easter service on the couch. (DOUBLE BUMMER) Well, actually I watched the service on the laptop and the girls ran around the house like crazy! Brooke did pause a minute or so to watch the choir sing with me and enjoyed seeing a few familiar faces, including Miss Connie, the conductor!
Due to their yucky colds and massive sugar highs (click here to see our Easter morning goodies and all the sugar we had for breakfast), the snot was about to hit the fan by the time daddy returned from church...I was frazzled to say the least, so much so that hubby just sent me to bed! I slept from 1:00-5:30PM...a good ole' long Easter Sunday nap. Can't say that I have ever spent my Easter Sunday doing that, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. Besides I NEEDED it!
It really was a good day...it just wasn't our traditional Sunday.

So that's our Easter in a nut eggshell!
Not exactly what we had planned and definitely not the traditionally Easter Sunday we love and are accustomed to...we didn't even get to wear our pretty new dresses!!!! :-(

Most importantly, it was a good week of reflection for our little family. Our Brookie knows that Jesus came to this world, walked in our shoes being a perfect example, had to suffer greatly, and died for our MANY sins because He loves us so much...she is really starting to get it! :-)

But y'all the best part is that we do not have to celebrate Easter on this one special Sunday of the year....we can celebrate it EVERY Sunday...He is Risen...He lives!

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

~~Update~~
The Easter bunny left "The Jesus Storybook Bible" for the girls in their Easter basket. We have been giving these as gifts for a while, but haven't had our own copy until now. Brooke treasures hers and begs to read it everyday. If you are ever looking for a good children's bible check it out!

A Thomas & Friends Weekend

This weekend Thomas the train came to our neck of the woods, so of course we couldn't miss the fun. This was our 3rd time to go see Thomas and friends and we hope to go every year until the girls get too old... We LOVE all things trains and the fun times that we find at the train station. The Thomas people add new little extras to the exhibit each year and that is certainly fine by us. Each time we have been, we find new and different things to entertain us and this year's trip to Calera proved to be even better than the last!
We planned to go last Friday with our playgroup, but it rained, so we rescheduled for this Friday.
We got up early, got ready, and headed out at 9:30AM. Thankfully it wasn't raining, but it was quite a bit chilly out. We picked up a friend that lives in the neighborhood and headed south. There was no traffic and we made it there in record time.
Upon arrival, we met up with several more friends and had the best day ever! When we go to Thomas each year we don't even ride the big Thomas train because it is so expensive, but we do, do TONS of other things for little or no money at all!
Upon arrival, we acquired a map and started on our journey around to all the stations to get it stamped for a fun prize at the end of the day. In the midst of getting our paper stamped, we jumped in the bouncers, got some Thomas tattoos, had fun sliding on the big slide, played at the many train tables, colored and made stamp art, rode the steam train TWICE,(the conductor let us ride again because one of our friends lost her shoe on the first time around) we listened to music, had a picnic lunch, played putt putt, went to story time, got balloon animals from the Thomas clowns, and fed the goats at the petting zoo. Whew...I hope I didn't leave anything out...and wouldn't you know that about 20 minutes before we finished all of these fun activities, the sun came out and the chill left the air. A little too late for us because it was about two o'clock and we needed to head home!
Here is a short video that we took during lunch...if anyone knows the music man's name let me know...we would love to get a CD.

Also, you can click here to see some more fun pics from our day!

After we had pretty much finished all the activities, my camera battery died and so we took that as a sign to head out. We cashed in our stamped paper for a fun prize, loaded up the mini van, and got back on the interstate. This time northbound and we were so thankful that we had already been to Thomas because the traffic coming into town was majorly backed up...we even heard that some of the people heading to Thomas missed their train ride because of all the traffic!
The girls were all worn out and were nice and sleepy upon arrival home. They both took a big ole nap while mommy got some things done around the house.
After the girls woke up from their nap, daddy came home from work and took us out to eat at Jim and Nick's for some yummy dinner! During dinner we told daddy all about our special day out with Thomas and he shared with us some pretty interesting tidbits of his day as well.
The next day, our friends from Ocean Springs came in town to see Thomas too. You see, Thomas doesn't go to every town and they had never "met" him before, so when they heard that he was just a hop, skip, and a huge jump over to Alabama, they couldn't resist checking it out. They even got tickets to ride on the big Thomas the Tank Engine for the ultimate Thomas experience. They had a great time visiting with Thomas, but an even better time visiting with us! ;-)
We decided to go out to Pizza Pro (imagine that!) for dinner and met some other friends there too. We helped our sweet friends' baby girl celebrate her 3rd birthday....the kids had a good time, eating pizza, running around, and they even all got to hit the big gong at departure time! The adults had a nice time as well. We didn't ring the gong, but we did have a chance to have a little bit of grown up conversation!
After dinner, we stopped at the grocery and decided on some Bud Select and Strawberry Arbor Mist...just can't resist the mist...and headed home to have a drink or two!
Our guest pooped out pretty early because of their long adventurous day, but hubby and I stayed up late drinking and talking! :-)
The next morning we all went to Sunday school and church together which was a very special treat! How nice to have our sweet friends with us visiting the house of the Lord...and on such a special day~Palm Sunday! We originally planned to attend the church Resurrection egg hunt and picnic, but it got cancelled this year.

:-( I guess whoever decided that we shouldn't have it had a direct connect with God because it surely was raining cats and dogs all morning and it wouldn't have been a good day for a hunt OR picnic at ALL! Instead, we ate lunch at Habanero's. (shocker, I know.) After lunch, we went back to the house to let the kids play for a few minutes and then our friends had to get on the road back home and hubby had to head to work.
The girls and I snuggled on the couch and fell fast asleep listening to the rain pitter patter on the windowsills. The perfect ending to a great weekend with Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends!