Friday, December 30, 2005

Our little baker

Last night, I made some cookies for Rob's office for the holiday and I let Bailey help me.  She LOVES to help, and believe it or not, sometimes, she actually succeeds.  I let her help put in the flour into the cookie dough.  Tablespoon by tablespoon, the child poured it in.  She was having such a grand time. 

 

Well, today, we realized we didn't save enough cookies for ourselves (only one) so Bailey thought we should make some more and she was right!  Bailey helped pour in the flour and then all of a sudden, she thought a 1/2 tsp scoop would work better.  Wow, now that took a while.  After all of this baking, I'm thinking Bailey needs her own apron.  YAY FOR EBAY!

 

Also note: Hide the chocolate chips from any toddlers named Bailey.  They think they should get to eat them all.

Bubble Girl.

Bailey has been around her Grandpa way too much because this afternoon,  I got out the bubble stuff and I have never done this for her before and she knew what the stuff was and said, "BUBBLE!"  I took her out on the deck to blow bubbles and she practiced the word over and over and spoke to Kaitlin.

Mommy will have to do this more often so Bailey has one less thing to miss about Grandpa since Grandpa and Grandma are now in Phoenix for their yearly hibernation.

I never post when I should

I forget to post so many things.  I never told about how Bailey's Grandpa Hudson dressed up like Santa because neither of the two attempts taking her went exactly as planned.  So Grandpa dressed up, she sat still long enough for one semi-decent photo and then she was off to take on the world.

She also went sledding that day, which was the 19th, if anyone's curious, and she did incredibly well. 

The child really is fearless.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

The Best Godparents

We forgot our camera yesterday, but it was a fabulous day anyhow.  We went over to Bailey's Godparents Mike and Julie's house.  Bailey adores their dog Biscuit, and she's kind of crazy about them too.  We had chili, the boys watched football, Bailey hugged the dog, chased the dog, tortured the dog, drank egg nog, and had marvelous conversation.  They gave her the cutest presents.  They were his and hers presents to Bailey.  Mike gave her a John Deere tractor toy and a John Deere book and thanks to him, I now have the phrase "happy tractoring" fully embedded into my head.  Julie gave her The Velveteen Rabbit book and her very own rabbit like in the story, a bunny that Biscuit was quite willing to take off of Bailey's hands if she needed.  Biscuit actually helped Bailey unwrap it!

Bailey does the most adorable thing when she gives hugs to people, dogs, cats, stuffed bunnies, she goes "ohhhhhh" or "awwwww."  She must hear this a lot during hugs, because for a couple months now, she does it and it just makes the hugs even more memorable and cozy and amazing.

She's amazing.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Pardon her French

Bailey turned seventeen months old today.  I'm pretty excited about that.  She's just so amazing too.  Today, we had lunch with Rob since Tuesdays are his late nights.  Then Bailey and I went and ran some errands.

Right this moment, Bailey's watching her French DVD.  Lately, it's her favorite when it used to be something she'd beg for me to turn off.  Just  a bit ago, she was trying to mimic everything that they were saying.  It was pretty funny listening to her pretend to speak French.

Not everyone gets a baby genius, luckily, we did.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Moments Like These

Friday, Bailey and I got out of the house after a week of recovery and cabin fever.  It was must deserved and much needed.  We headed to the mall, had a very late lunch at McDonalds' where Bailey insisted upon dipping her fries into ketchup (and she doesn't even like the taste) and then off to Kohl's to take advantage of their weekend sale.  While at Kohl's, Bailey shocked me by doing something out of her character.  She sat down in the toy section and played with the pop-up pals toys.  You know those things?  You push a button or pull a lever and the things pop up out of a door?  Anyway, she played with two different versions and then would say, "it's UP!"  She knows the concept of up!!!!
She's a genius.  A brilliant genius.
Anyhow, she sat there for the LONGEST time playing with these.  It was amazing.  She's never been like this in toy aisles before.  I was so excited, I ended up buying her one of them for Christmas.  Luckily, she's forgotten about it, so it'll be a surprise all over again.

Saturday, we had to go do some shopping for our neighbor Quinton's birthday present.  Bailey did it again!  She sought out the toy aisle and played!  Daddy was just as excited as Mommy was.  She was loving every button and touched everything she possibly could.  She's never been this interested in toys before until now...
Just in the knick of time.
Our Christmas shopping has just suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.

Yesterday evening, Bailey spent some time with her wonderful grandparents.  How lucky are we for them, honestly?  Daddy had a work Christmas party to go to, so they watched her at the last minute (we waited that long to make sure she was healthy enough).  Sure, it was kind of odd driving all the way to Independence from Ottawa, and to Bonner Springs for the party, and back to Independence and then home to Ottawa all for an hour at a party, but hey...we don't have a lot of access to babysitters, or at least we never ask anyone besides her grandparents.  She sure does love them.  Grandpa Hudson is possibly her most favorite person in the whole wide world.  He blows bubbles indoors with her and lets her beat him up with an inflatable sword.  What's not to love?

It was humorous because she hadn't slept anything longer than fifteen minutes yesterday, stayed awake the whole drive to Independence, so we expected her to nap for at least part of her visit with them since we'd be back late.  So we show up past ten and has she slept?  No, at least nothing longer than a thirty second tease to make Grandma and Grandpa think maybe they'd get a break.  They must have worn her out though because slept the entire drive home without a fight. 
She definitely loves her visits with them though, and as she should.  They leave right after Christmas for Arizona for their yearly hibernation.  Luckily, she gets to see them next Sunday too so Mommy and Daddy can see Chronicles of Narnia.  Until recently, Mommy and Daddy never really left Bailey much, but they realized they better take their chance now before Grandma and Grandpa are away in the desert sun.  She's going to miss them so much...


We finally bought our Christmas tree today.  This Mommy has been getting antsy.  In fact, she was getting down right nasty about it.  We were in search of a tree with the best bristles for a Bailey, ones that wouldn't prick her like the spindle in Sleeping Beauty.  Although, sometimes we wouldn't mind her getting some sleep...

So we got our tree and tonight we started decorating it and the child is just truly intrigued by this thing.  She'd do her fake sneezes and then we put on the lights and now she just glows when she looks at it.  She actually glows.  She was trying to help us hang up ornaments too.  She's really loving the Madame Alexander ones.

Ask us in a week just how much we hate this thing, because it's pretty new right now.