Books, books and more books

Bailey has a new found obsession with her books, and I am so happy! I love to read...although it seems I never have the time to any more! and I have hoped that Bailey would have a love for reading as well. The love of books started with her just wanting to play with them. She thought it was so funny to pull them all down from her bookshelf in her room and shuffle them around on the floor. That eventually led to her wanting us to read to her. Granted, she would usually lose interest and start chewing on the book :) Now, she is doing much better and we actually get through most of the stories. The cutest thing, however, has started in the last couple of days. She is "reading" her books herself. She sits with the book in her lap, turns the pages and just jibber jabbers the whole way through! And she'll nod her head along the way as if she's really telling a story. I love to sit and watch her do this. I will have to snap a picture soon!

HUGS!!

Tuesday night I was sitting in the floor playing with Bailey and she crawled up in my lap and was facing me. We were sitting there playing and all of a sudden she just reaches up and puts her little arms around my neck and gave me a real little person hug!!!! It was the sweetest moment ever. She sat that way for a couple of minutes, and then she leaned her head back, grinned at me and went right back to hugging! It's like she knew she was being incredibly sweet. It's amazing, you think you can't love them anymore than you already do, and then at a moment like, your love just soars!!! Being a mother really is the most amazing gift!

1 year check up

We finally had Bailey's 1 year check up yesterday (now that she'll be 13 months in 2 days!). This visit went much better than the 9 month check up did! She is now 30 1/2 inches tall (90%) and she weighs 22 lbs (70%). Maybe she will be lucky and be tall and slim...unlike either of her parents!! I talked to the doctor about the bottle situation. We have been down to just the nighttime bottle since her 1st birthday, and I knew she would break from this bottle easily, my main concern was her milk intake. She does not like to drink milk from her sippy cup at all! The doctor said usually the will go on "strike" for a couple of days from milk but will eventually drink it from a sippy cup. So we did not have a bottle last night before bed, and all was fine! We've actually done this a couple of times before too, but we started for good last night. I am a little sad at the thought of no more bottles. She would usually cuddle up with me when she would take that nighttime bottle...sniffle, sniffle :( But I am kind of excited at the thought of not cleaning anymore bottles :) She did very well with the shots and only cried for maybe a minute afterwards. She didn't even flinch when they did the finger prick...which I think is awful!! She was a quite whiny this morning, so I think it will be a long day for my mom today. We have to go back next month to get the last half of the flu shot. The doctor said that she was speaking very well for age. Once again we were told we have a very healthy, well-adjusted little girl. What more could a mommy ask for? :) Updates: Favorite Foods: She eats everything! Her favs are peas, hamburger, any kind of soup, all of her Gerber snacks and biscuits and gravy. Favorite Cartoons: Barney and Seasame Street New words she's saying: Dog, sock, shoe, kiss, Boppa (her great-grandfather), dink (drink) She LOVES dancing! She is so funny to watch. She does this head bob thing...it's hilarious! It can even just be a commercial that comes on TV that has music on it and she'll start dancing:) We have a Little People's sing along CD we listen to in the car, and she enjoys it so much! You can ask her where her belly button is and she'll raise up her shirt and point to it! She also knows where her socks and shoes go. The walking is going much better. She can actually do it very well, but once she stumbles she is perfectly content to crawl after that. We've recently started letting her sleep with her Mr. Froggy Pants (a stuffed animal frog). This morning when I went in to get her she had her blanket all wedged under her belly (it's always like this!) and she was all snuggled up with her frog. It was so sweet!!

Family Pictures

I need help picking pictures!! We had family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago and I'm having a hard time deciding which ones I like the best and could really use some help from my fellow bloggers. The photographer doesn't allow me to post the pictures, but here's how you can see them... Go to: http://www.carlisle-photography.com/ Click on Proofs Click on Maxwell The password is 1218nick What I'm really struggling with is picking a picture of Bailey to have made into a canvas print. Any feedback would be appreciated!

Play time at the mall

Today my grandparents and I took Bailey up to the mall to play. She's a little hesitant when she first gets there, but after a little bit she warms up and always has a blast.

I absolutely love this picture!!!! And you'll notice in first pictures she has pig tails in, and now she doesn't. It's all I can do to get her to keep them in for over an hour now that she knows how to pull them out!!

Crawling through the bottle was her favorite thing of all! I had to almost drag her away from it when it was time to leave. Which by the way, my grandparents took us to Olive Garden for lunch, thanks mema and boppa!!And I had a very tired little girl after all was said and done. She had played hard and had eaten very well, and it was time for a nap!

Happy Halloween!

Oh what fun Halloween was this year!! I left work early on Friday so we could go trick-or-treating downtown. This was great! It's from 1-5 and most of the shops hand out candy. It's mainly younger kids, so you don't have to worry about your little on being knocked over by the big kids running to get their candy. We had quite a troop with us...it was me, Nick, Bailey, my mom and step-dad, my grandparents and my nephew Quentin.

I love this picture!!

She loves suckers!!!I thought this was hilarious!! She couldn't fit in her carseat with the costume on so she rode in her tights and shirt. :)

That night we just handed out candy to the kids in our neighborhood.

She loved playing in the candy! This is what entertained her most of the night.I had to include these pictures to show off my monster mum!! Last fall I planted 3 yellow mums, forgot to water them most of the time...like usual...and two died, and somehow this surrived and came back full of life this year! I've planted 3 more this year and they look so puny next to this one. Of course, now they're looking a little sad because I forget to water them most of the time too!