Finally an update

Hello to all from glorious Plano, TX. Okay, so it is August in Texas so "glorious" might not be appropriate, but we do enjoy our new digs. Bailey started full-time daycare today and she was sent home by 2:30 for excessive diarrhea! Go figure. She wasn't running a fever, and I KNOW she is teething, but nonetheless, she and her daddy will make a trip to the doctor tomorrow morning just to make sure she isn't really sick. You should see the diaper rash on this kid from all the diarrhea she has had the past few days. OUCH! I think we are just going to start rinsing her in the shower between diapers because she howls when a baby wipe even gets close to her little bottom. Pobresito.
Although this summer has come to an end, we did manage to sneak in a quick trip to Colorado to see the Blakes. We had a wonderful visit and even got to take in some sights during the day while Grandma played with Bailey. The top couple of pictures are from Colorado. The one with the Texas flag in it was taken on the Royal Gorge Bridge. Quite breathtaking, and a bit creepy to walk across because cars just drive right past you and make the boards shake under your feet. The one where Nick is "wearing" Bailey was taken at Cave of the Winds. This was outside the caves, but I think Bailey liked the caves. I thought they were pretty cool too (literally)!
I had to include the one where Bailey is sagging because it reminds me of my peeps at JLMS! Just trying to keep it real. hahaha! The others I included just because I have been so bad at updating this stinking blog and felt you should be rewarded with some preciousness just for being patient with me.
I would promise to do better, but not likely!

Movin On Up...

to Plano! So as most of you know, our time in Aggieland has come to an end. We have spent this summer searching for jobs and a place to live. As expected, God had it mapped out for us all along. Although Nick has had a job for quite some time, we kept putting off the house hunt until I found a job so we could try to live close to my job and Bailey's daycare. Well, time was running out so we decided to get an apartment in Plano since Nick will potentially have many clients in that area. We figured, we shouldn't rush into buying a house if we aren't sure where we will be working. Then two days after we found an awesome apartment, I get a call from a sweet principal in Plano. I went up for an interview, and she called yesterday to say I got the job! I will be teaching Elementary PE...How cool is that?!! The school is 2.2 miles from our apartment complex and there are at least 3 daycares within 3 miles of the school that we are going to check out for Bailers. Can you believe it? When it works out that well, it makes me think we were following God's plan all along!
This is our final week in College Station. We will load up and head to Plano on either the 3rd or the 4th. This place has been amazing to us, and we will always hold a special place in our hearts for our friends and family in B/CS. We will miss you all!
Here are a few pictures of our happy little baby! Her brother, Dakota, is at Mammy and Poppy Camp in Abilene and she is just LOST without him. She still loves bathtime and bubbles along with laughing at her silly parents!

Mother's Day and Nick's Graduation

I apologize for the delay in updates. No excuse other than spending all my free time with little Bailers and the rest of my family. Many things have happened since my last post. We had Mother's Day which was awesome. Bailey took me, and Nick got to take his Mom to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. This is the first Mother's Day Nick has had with his mom since 1998! My mom, MiMi, got to join us the following weekend for Nick's graduation. Still weird that I was actually an honoree on Mother's Day, but I think I am getting used to being a Mom. I can't forget about our "firstborn" son, Dakota. He has been celebrating Mother's Day with us for the last four years. Bailey really likes to watch Dakota in the backyard, and she thinks it is hilarious when he plays with his ball.
Grandma is heading back to Japan at the end of this week, and we are so sad. We have been so blessed to have Grandma stay with Bailers during the day along with taking care of Nick and I at night. We are so thankful, and we are sure going to miss her! Good thing she is bringing PaPa and Uncle Ethan back in July to help us move!
The weekend after Mother's Day was one of the best weekends we have had since we arrived in Aggieland. It was Graduation Weekend! Nick's grandparents came down from Paris, and my parents, my grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousins and a few good friends got share in the magical moment for Nick! Let's be honest...it was pretty magical for me too because I can't wait for Nick's first "real" paycheck! No more sugar momma for Nick!
Needless to say, we are excited about the changes and opportunities that await us in Dallas. We will miss our friends and family in Aggieland dearly, but we look forward to being with our friends and family up in the Metroplex.

Cute burpcloth giveaway!

A friend of a friend has started this new business and it sounds adorable. Check out the Jelby link below the birthday and anniversary tickers for information on a giveaway contest. They are all so cute but I like Ryleigh and Caroline the best.

Precious, Laughing Bailey

A little background...Bailey loves to "fly". She likes it when you put her above your head and make noises, but she REALLY likes the landing! I think that started because Nick makes this funny crashing noise when he brings her back down and then the "flight" always ends with a big smile from whomever the pilot happens to be. Today Grandma was the pilot. I was in the other room preparing a bottle for Miss Thing, and oh the way my heart melted when I heard her giggling from across the house.

Finally some pictures...

I finally took the hundred and something pictures off our camera tonight and found some hilarious and some just down right precious pictures to post. Wendy (Grandma) and I spent about an hour just looking at old pictures and wondering where time goes. She loves to smile and she is starting to talk A LOT! Wonder who she gets that from?



Apparently Grandma and Bailey like to play dress up when I'm at work because I found some pretty funny pictures of Bailey on the camera, but she always has on something different when I get home. Perhaps it is because Bailey 'likes' to spit up on at least three outfits a day...hmmm.



She doesn't have her own set of clubs yet, but she is already Daddy's little golfer.

A Busy Week...

This past week we had many reasons to celebrate. Bailey turned 3 months on Monday, and Nick and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on Friday. We didn't have a huge bash for Bailey because I had soccer practice and Nick was in crunch mode for his second CPA test which he took on Wednesday. We enjoyed a nice evening with the five of us (Grandma Blake and Dakota included).

Friday, Nick and I shared a lovely dinner at Veritas and then hung out with some friends at Yesterday's for a couple of drinks and some shuffleboard. Grandma watched Bailey and apparently they had a good time without us.

Today, I put Bailey in the Baby Bjorn and we took Dakota for a walk. They both did so good. Bailey even talked to me during most of the walk. Actually, I think she was talking to Dakota but either way it was precious. Tonight, we got to play a few games of washers on the new boards Nick built for us. Bailey had been spitting up all day (what's new) so we took her clothes off and just left her naked. We took her papasan chair outside with us and just wrapped her in a blanket. I felt a little like white trash with our naked baby in the front yard with us while we threw washers, but she had a blast. She LOVES to be outside! The neighbors even came over to see her and I didn't take her out of her papasan because I was a bit embarrassed of her nakedness. Of course I don't have pictures of ANY of the events of the week, but we did manage to take a few snapshots of random things. I will post them soon.

Easter Bunny Bailey

I know I haven't updated in a while, but I promise I will try to be better about it. Now that I am back at work and coaching soccer, the only thing I want to do when I get home is hold my little girl. Nick's Mom, aka Grandma, is staying with us and taking care of Bailey (and us) during the day. Needless to say, she is a lifesaver and Bailey loves her!

So we took Bailey to see the Easter Bunny for the first time and she did pretty good. The little outfit she has on says, "Baby's 1st Easter" and it has a fuzzy bunny tail and a cute little hat with rabbit ears. Oh my gosh...adorable! She started to cry a couple of times, but we were able to calm her down with face-making and goofiness on the opposite side of the camera.

A few of Bailey's new tricks include flying around the house, cleaning house in the Baby Bjorn, playing stand-up, sit-down, sticking out her tongue and laughing at just about anything her daddy does. Recently we started reading to her and although she doesn't have a clue what it says, she is captivated by the pictures for at least a short while. Bailey also watched her first movie the other night...Bolt! Well, she watched about 5 minutes of it, but she was totally into it. I knew she was going to be a dog person! Cute movie by the way.

Enjoy the pictures!

Guess What Bailey Did Today?...

She laughed! We had just finished a short day of geocaching and tuna sandwiches when it happened. Nick was holding her and talking to her and she just started grinning so big that she laughed. It lasted for at least 30 seconds and as she was laughing we were crying. She was holding her head up (kind of) and her mouth was absolutely adorable with her toothless grin and her puffy little cheeks. Of course we didn't have the camera ready, but my heart just melted, and I am sure it won't be the last time she laughs at her daddy.

29 and holding!

This past Sunday marked my 29th birthday. I have never really been one to get upset over birthdays. I mean how sad can it be when you have a day dedicated to you?... with presents to boot! This year has already brought so many new joys to my life, and it is only March!
My amazing sister, Amanda, and her wonderful family came to visit this past weekend along with several aunts, uncles, cousins and of course...Mammy and Poppy. This is the second year in a row that I have been lucky enough to spend my birthday with my sister. Those of you that know both of us, know that we are extremely close. We are four years apart and haven't lived in the same state since 2000, but you would never know it by how we act when we are together.
Amanda now has two hilarious kids, Jack (almost 2) and Katherine (almost 6 mos). Watching her with her kids was inspiring and exhausting at the same time. She is an amazing mom! I can barely handle one that is only 6 weeks old and she is Super Mom with two! I wish I had all day to share with you all the funny things that Jack said and did over the weekend, but a few pictures will have to do the trick.

Geocaching Anyone?

I am addicted. If you don't know what geocaching is, let me lay it out for you. It is a giant scavenger hunt that combines nature and technology. Who doesn't like a good scavenger hunt and a little competition? Using a GPS unit, you enter the waypoints of a cache location which you can get from www.geocaching.com. Then you just let the GPS lead the way. Once your unit "zeros out" you just start looking. Most of them are located in parks and off little nature trails, but some are what we call "urban" caches. Those are the most fun because you don't have to bushwack through trees and thorns to find the treasure.
What kind of treasures...well that is where it can get tricky. Sometimes it is just a paper log that you sign and date saying you found it. Others are camoed containers holding little toys and gadgets that you can trade or just take. Great fun for the whole family...even Dakota loves it!
As you can tell from the pictures on the side, we have found some pretty cool ones (57 total). There are lots of people who have found thousands of these caches all over the world. (There are almost 800,000 geocaches in the world!)
I was 9 months pregnant when we found the caches pictured on this blog and we haven't been since Bailey's arrival. I am having withdrawls, but hopefully we will get back out there soon! Let me know if you are a fellow cacher, or if you want to become one!

Poor, Poor Dakota

As some of you may or may not know, Dakota had what we have been calling "an episode" at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve. Basically it resembled a seizure, and it had Nick and me frantically scrambling to get out of our pajamas (yes, we were in our pajamas at midnight on New Year's Eve) and en route to the TAMU Small Animal Hospital. BUT, thankfully he snapped out of it after a minute or so. After monitoring him for an hour or so, he seemed to be fine. He was definitely shaken up, but he was for the most part back to normal.
On a recent visit to Dr. Bond's (our vet) office for his regular round of shots, Nick mentioned his "episode" and Dr. Bond said that Dakota might have Epilepsy. He said TAMU can do head scans for a couple thousand dollars, or we can just wait and see if it happens again. We chose the latter and thankfully he hasn't had another seizure. Apparently the way they diagnose Epilepsy in dogs is through exclusion. That means they test for a whole bunch of other things and if those tests come back negative...it must be Epilepsy. Now the only weird thing he does is repeated licking at the air. We call him Lizard Licker and Epileptic Eddie. Poor baby, not only does he have Epilepsy, but he also has a new baby sister that he has to put up with day in and day out. He is such a good boy, and we pray that stays with us for many, many years to come!

My first Post

So I have officially joined the World of Blogging. I fought it off as long as I could, but after hearing numerous requests for updated Bailey pictures and daily activities, I decided a blog would be the easiest way to appeal to the masses. So here it goes.

January 20, 2009 is when it all began. Nick and I went to the hospital at 5:00 am ready to be induced. After checking in and the initial evaluations, we were ready to get started. I was placed on the contraction monitor. After an hour or so, the nurses decided Bailey was not reacting enough to the contractions. My doctor came by, we talked and then they broke my water. After they broke my water, the contractions were AWFUL! At first I thought I just had a high pain tolerance, but I was oh so wrong! Finally, I got an epidural and all was back on schedule. Bailey started reacting well, heartbeat was good and things were looking positive. Still no pitocin for me because at this point I was dilated to an 8 and they were still monitoring our progress. About an hour later, out of nowhere, Bailey's monitor started jumping around like crazy. The nurse came running in and asked what happened. Nick and I just looked at each other like, "What do you mean?" She immediately started ordering other nurses to get the doctor and to prep for a C-Section. From what I understand, Bailey was trying to come out but every time she moved she sabotaged the umbilical cord. Approximately 30 minutes later, at 11:23 am, little Miss Bailey Morgan Blake was born via C-Section. Turns out the cord was wrapped around her leg and she was sitting on it like a swing. Silly little girl. I think she was trying to use it as a jump rope since that was the unit were doing in my PE classes at school.

What we felt...I don't know that I can completely explain it with words. We went through so many emotions in the 5 hours we were waiting for Bailey's arrival. We were nervous, excited, scared, anxious, worried and then...when you hear that little cry. The sound every parent loves to hear during birth and then wishes to never hear it again. When Nick and I heard Bailey cry for the first time in the operating room, we just looked at each other and the tears started streaming. We were finally parents. Holy crap, we ARE parents!

Today Bailey is four weeks old. She is perfect in every way. I still have a hard time believing that she is ours. I think my Mom said it best when she said, "And if you could have gone to the store and picked one out, she is exactly what you would have picked!" I couldn't have said it better myself.