Ponies and toys and hats, oh my!

Bailey loves her new Bounce and Spin pony!! This hooks up to the TV (wirelessly thank goodness!) and you can bounce along to different games for different ages. She doesn't really care if it's hooked up the TV or not, she just likes bouncing on it. And she also has a new found obsession with hats. This is Nick's toboggan that she loves wearing.

And as if she doesn't have enough new toys to play with, she found a box of her old baby toys we were packing away and decided she really needed to play with them! And another hat!

I don't know what this face is!!

And then she decided to try and wear both hats at the same time!!

Bedroom Re-Do

I've been debating whether or not to rearrange our bedroom for quite some time. Yesterday I finally decided it was time! And I love it!!! Before I always thought it was missing something, and now it just seems more finished. This is part of one of the New Year's Resolutions I'm going to have for myself...get more organized! (Stay tuned for Thankful Thursday when I share my new favorite Clutter Killer!) I would still like to get a couple more things to hang on the wall, and we still need another bed side table for Nick's side of the bed, but it's 100% better than it was! I failed to take before pictures, but here are some after pictures.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was just as busy as Christmas Eve! We started out the morning with just the three of us. Bailey woke up at about 7:30 and we went out to the living room to see what Santa Claus had brought.

Santa didn't bring much to the house since he was so generous the day before! :)

Bailey loved her purse and all the goodies inside!

Of everything she was most excited about the Gerber granola bars that were in her stocking. She actually squealed when we pulled them out! We had to stop playing with the toys so we could eat one! She loves her food :)

And of course Santa brought goodies for Jackson too!

After we were finished opening presents I started breakfast. We had biscuits and gravy, bacon and country ham for Nick. Then it was time to get ready and head to his mom's house to open presents and eat lunch. I don't have any pictures from their house...

My cute new rain boots that Nick got me...and they matched my sweater!!

After lunch was over we headed to my dad's house for more presents. Our stay wasn't very long because Bailey was in desperate need of a nap. So back to the house we went to rest up before going to my grandmother's for dinner. On Christmas Eve we just have snack foods and soup since we've all eaten a big lunch some where, so we all get back together on Christmas Day to have dinner together.

Nick's dad lives in Tennessee, so he is coming up on Friday to stay with us for the weekend and we'll do Christmas with him then. So for now all my decorations are still in place.

Christmas Eve

Once you hit a certain age the magic of Christmas seems to fade a little, but being able to see Bailey's excitement this year re-sparked everything! She really got into opening the presents and ripping the paper off, and she loved playing with the tissue paper. She received SO many presents...and our requests of few toys seemed to go unheard, so now our house looks somewhat like a toy store! Since both mine and Nick's parents are divorced Christmas can become hectic. Here is what we did on Christmas Eve...

We start the day by going to my mom's house to open gifts with them and my step-sister Traci and my nephew, Quentin. Most of the toys Bailey got from my mom and step-dad were for her house, since she has outgrown several of her toys there.

This is my nephew Quentin playing with Thomas the Tank toys, he loved them!

Nick's castle :)

After we're finished opening presents we head to Frankfort to have a big lunch with my step-dad's parents and open gifts with them.

Showing off her bear bottom :)

She is now terrified of this Wubzy doll! He does head stands and cart wheels, and she tried to pick him up the other day while he was moving and I guess it scared her. Now, if she even hears him she starts crying!

Bailey wanted in Quentin's fire truck so bad, but he wasn't about to share...so she went and told his mommy on him :)

After finishing here it was back to the house to prepare for my family to come over that night...and finally time for Bailey to take a nap! She went from 7:30-3:00 without a nap and she was SO good!

Notice the crazy hair...this is because she pulled her pig tails out!

Mass chaos!

Time for Christmas jammies!

Both my cousins got a Nintendo DS for Christmas...we hardly heard a peep out of Jacob the rest of the night!

The kids were rolling around on the floor together :)

Once everyone left it was time to decorate cookies for Santa Claus. We tried to get Bailey to help decorate, but she was more interested in eating them!

Dress up

There are two things I am very much looking forward to as Bailey gets older...buying her an Easy Bake Oven and playing Dress up. Here is to the beginning of dress up... This used to be a pink rubber ball thing that ended up busting, so now you can stretch it over your head. She loves when me and Nick wear it, so we thought we would put it on her!

And this is what happens when aunt Brittany babysits!!! I love these pictures!

And my favorite...

Thanks for a fun afternoon aunt Brittany!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

2007 2008 The picture pretty much says it all...Bailey did not like Santa! I thought bringing the book and letting him hold it would help...but it didn't. Last year she was asleep in Santa's arms, this year she was crying, I wonder what will happen next year? :)

Veggies anyone?

I truly believe that patience is a virtue, and it's one I wasn't blessed with. Of course with Bailey I am more patient than I ever would have imagined possible, but there are situations where I'd be willing to throw in the towel if it weren't for Nick.

Before I was even pregnant, we would talk about how we wanted to raise our children. While there were things we disagreed on, we were on the same page for most of the issues. One thing we've been very adamant about is that we want Bailey to be a good, healthy eater. We both agreed on no pop or sugary drinks until she's older, and then limited amounts. She gets 100% juice mixed with water once a day and the rest of the day is water or milk. She gets a yummyGerber animal cracker for dessert IF she's eaten well at dinner. And we're not complete sugar Nazi's...she does get chocolate, cookies and other goodies occasionally. I just know that trying to instill healthy eating habits in her will be much easier now than when she's 10! But this just keeps getting harder and harder. We've learned if we give her two different things at a meal, even if they're two things she really likes, she'll usually pick one and only eat that. So of course when we were giving her a veggie and a meat, she would pick the meat and only eat that. To try and work around this we have started to give her a veggie to eat while the rest of the meal is being prepared. This is definitely better, but still not always easy. Last night she screamed and cried for a good 5 minutes straight before eating some of her peas. But once she started eating them she was fine. I would have probably just gone ahead and gave her something else, but Nick was so patient and calmed her down and got her to eat them. Thank goodness for a patient daddy! I do think she has gotten burnt out on some of the veggies...she won't hardly eat green beans any more, and she'll only eat carrots if they're in vegetable beef stew.

Any suggestions for a new fun way to serve veggies? She LOVES tomatoes, but I'm trying not to give them to her too often because I don't want her to get tired of them too! She does great with all the other food groups, but we're struggling a little with the vegetables!

Thankful Thursday

This week I'm thankful for...

1. My mixer! I've had this stand mixer for almost 5 years now but have just really begun to appreciate in the last 2 years. Nick had promised his students a free day for winning the canned food drive and I told him I would bake cookies for the kids. So last night me and my mixer whipped up enough cookie dough to make over 150 cookies, which I'll be baking tonight. It's great to be able to dump the ingredients in and work on the next step while it's busy mixing away. While this may be the plain Jane of stand mixers, I'm very thankful for it!

2. Cookbooks. I LOVE cookbooks! In my dream kitchen I would love to have an area built into my cabinets to display all my cookbooks. I especially like dessert cookbooks...mainly because I like desserts so much :) I own this book and recommend it to any cookie lover.

Let it Snow!

Yesterday I went in to work until lunch, at which time they let me have the rest of the day off since there wasn't much going on in the office. I think they knew I was dying to get Bailey out in the snow :) So I rushed home and ate lunch and we all got bundled up. This was Bailey's first layer...I just love this shirt!

Then it was to her room to finish the layering. Tights+sweat pants+long sleeved shirt+sweatshirt+jacket+socks+boots+mittens+toboggan = a warm little girl!

She really wasn't sure what to think about the snow. With the snow being pretty deep in our side yard and the top layer hard because of the ice, she couldn't really move. I tried to clear a little

path for her, but she had no interest in trying to move! She would just point to things and jibber jabber. And she liked watching daddy clean off our driveway (thank you again honey!!)

Nick tried holding her hand so she could walk with him, but she just started to cry! Then he thought it would be fun to show her how to throw snowballs! So he was holding her and throwing snowballs at me while I was trying to video tape...she did seem to enjoy that :) "Brr! It's cold, take me inside mommy!"