Mom & Dad

This is what Andrew has been calling us lately. Actually he's been calling us mom & dad on and off for the last month. I'm not sure I like it. It makes him sound so grown up. Nate doesn't seem to care, but I love when he calls me mommy. He goes back and forth between mommy & mom, but it just shows me how big he is getting and how fast it's going. I really wasn't prepared for the "mom" word until kindergarden or 1st grade. Wow, my baby boy is growing up so fast!

Lovin' bath time

It's their 1st official "real" bath together. Most baths are with Ava in her baby bath and Andrew next to her in the tub. They've only had a real bath together one other time which was in my parents big bath and Ava slipped around the whole time. This time she really enjoyed it. They loved playing together and thought bath time was so much fun!

6.23.2011

Sunshine

Another couple days of beautiful weather. The kids are having fun riding in Andrew's jeep.

6.22.2011

Ava also really loves watching Andrew play outside.

She thinks her brother is so funny!

6.23.2011

My bookworms

Both of my kids love books. Andrew will sit and look at books in his room during rest time for the longest time. He loves them and loves when we read stories to him. He has tons of books. It makes me so happy that Ava loves books too. I don't get the opportunity to sit and read books with her as much as I'd like to, but she loves when we do. If she sees a book on the ground, she will immediately start looking at it.

Most days Ava wants to crawl up & down the stairs. This day was no exception, but this time as soon as she got to the top, she crawled into her room and started looking at books. Andrew immediately went and joined her. I love that I was able to capture this moment.

6.21.2011

A really fun day!

Yesterday was such a fun day. It was in the mid to lower 80s and sunny. I really wanted to take the kids to the zoo in the morning, but everyone seemed to be busy. I decided that I was going to go ahead and just go, we'd still have lots of fun. When we woke up in the morning Nate told me that he was going to go to work for a bit and then go to the zoo with us...it seriously made my day!!! We picked him up from work about mid morning and headed to the zoo. It was really crowded, but we had lots of fun. Andrew wanted to sit in the back seat of the stroller and didn't walk around much. He really wanted to see the alligators, elephants and tiger. Ava sat in the front and loved every minute of it. She did great even though she missed her morning nap. I think the highlight of the zoo was watching the monkeys put on quite the show, swinging from branch to branch in their cage...it was so cute!

That afternoon after rest time Andrew helped me water the flowers. He is such a good helper and it is such a nice thing to do just the two of us. I really enjoyed that quality time with him and am continually reminded of what a sweet, loving and helpful little boy he is. (He also helped Daddy mow the lawn when he got home from work)

After dinner we decided to go on a bike ride. Andrew got a bigger bike for Christmas with training wheels and we haven't had much of a chance to try it out. When it's just me and the kids, it's hard for me to help him and take care of Ava. Andrew's a little scared when he's on the bike, but ended up doing great once we rode around in the neighborhood for awhile.

We ended our night with some homemade popsicles (just frozen orange juice). Both of the kids loved them! It was a perfect family day!

6.21.2011- Andrew 3.5 years, Ava 13 months

Big Girl Baths

I have not given Ava many big girl baths. I usually bathe her in the baby bath while I'm bathing Andrew. It just seems to work better since she tends to have "accidents" often. Lately Andrew has been wanting to take showers. We have a detachable shower head and he likes to spray it everywhere. So since it's just Ava taking a bath, I've been letting her go in the tub and she loves it. She moves everywhere, throws the toys from one side of the bath to the other, splashes around and laughs and stands up while holding on to the side.

The park

On Monday night Nate asked Andrew if he wanted to go to the park after dinner. Not just any park, but the park with the big sand pit with trucks and tractors. I had asked Andrew to go to this park the other day, but he said, "no, I just wanna go look for houses." Haha! Off we went to the park after dinner. It was a beautiful night and we had lots of fun. Andrew loved the sand pit, going down all of the fun slides, hanging from the monkey bars and swinging with Daddy. Ava enjoyed looking around and swinging. We are so loving the sunshine this week!

I LOVE this picture of my baby girl.

6.20.2011

Breakfast, is what's for dinner

Last Saturday Nate really wanted to make breakfast for dinner. He was craving waffles, something we never make. So, we had a fun dinner of waffles with all of the fixings- syrup, chocolate chips, raspberries (we didn't have strawberries), and whip cream. We also had eggs, sausage and biscuits...it was a ton of food. Both of the kids absolutely loved it! I was surprised when Andrew ate all of his eggs and asked for more and Ava completely devoured a whole waffle with peanut butter on it!

We LOVE Daddy!

Daddy's day was very relaxing. We had church in the morning, followed by lunch, nap time for the kids, the new Nascar game, and Dairy Queen treats. A perfect Daddy day.

Opening presents with Daddy.

One of Daddy's presents from the kids along with a frame with lots of pics of Daddy & the kids and the new Nascar video game.

Lunch with Papa & Pama Ming. The Bailey's are in Mexico.

Daddy & Andrew playing the new game....they both LOVE it.

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy.....we love you!

Summer tease

I feel like the weather lately is such a tease. We have a few nice days and then rain. I'm really hoping that summer will get here soon and it will be weeks and weeks of nice days without any rain. In the meantime we are really enjoying the sunshine on the days it makes an appearance! Lucky for us, the forecast this week is supposed to be sunny and maybe a few 80 degree days! Yea!

Last Friday it was beautiful so Andrew and I played outside while Ava napped. When she woke up Andrew took for a few rides in his jeep before we headed to the park. The park is kind of tricky right now with Ava still crawling. She wants to crawl everyone and Andrew wants me to play with him too...if only I had another set of arms & legs :) We still managed to have tons of fun!!!

Ava really loves riding in the jeep!


6.17.2011- Andrew 3.5 yrs & Ava 13 months

More teeth

For the last few weeks Ava hasn't been sleeping well. She doesn't really cry or wake up during her naps or in the night, but she moans a lot. When this happens, I know she's usually cutting teeth. So last Saturday I stuck my finger in her mouth to feel for some new teeth. To my surprise, she had 2 new teeth....her top 1 year molars! I was shocked! She hasn't even got her top teeth yet. Just the tips are poking through for now. I'm sure many more teeth will be coming soon, but as of now she has a total of 5.

Playing together

I love when the kids play together. No crying, no yelling, no taking toys away from each other, just laughing and having fun together. It doesn't happen all the time and I usually feel like I'm playing referee all day, but when it does happen it brings a smile to my face. I think there is nothing better than hearing your kids laugh together.

With the weather getting nicer, Andrew has been wanting to play outside more. Unfortunately Ava can't walk yet, so she wants to crawl all over the cement patio which I don't love since it totally ruins her clothes and she could get hurt. So most of the time she stares out the screen door while Andrew entertains her from the other side of the screen door. It's really cute and they both thinks it's really funny.

Ava is really wanting to go up the stairs all the time now. It's actually becoming a problem. She wants to climb the stairs, but when she gets to the top she's unhappy and really wants to just go back down so she can climb back up again. Thankfully Andrew is always helpful in letting me know when Ava heads towards the stairs. So the other day, Ava climbed the stairs and then we all (Andrew, Ava & myself) played at the top of the stairs for a bit. Ava is very loud and loves to yell out of excitement. The kids were taking turns yelling back and forth and they thought they were so funny. I had to capture the moment.....

And isn't Ava so adorable....I just love her and her sassy little personality!

6.13 & 6.16.2011- Andrew 3.5yrs Ava 13 months

Soccer

Andrew has now moved up to Cubs 2 at soccer. The still mainly work on different techniques during class, but towards the end of class they scrimmage. It's adorable to watch 3 & 4 year olds try to play soccer. Right before I got my video camera out, Andrew scored a goal...wish I would have gotten it on camera! Here is Andrew in action....6.13.2011

6.13.2011 Andrew 3 1/2 years old

Like Grandpa, Like Father, Like Son

Guest post by Nate

Some of my fondest memories with my dad were from going to hot rod shows with my dad. Although I didn't share the same level of enthusiasm as my dad did on the craftsmanship of the cars, we did share the level of enthusiasm for horsepower. And, more importantly I was enthusiastic about spending quality one on one time with my dad.

Fast forward a few years and enter in my son, Andrew. Of course, being a Bailey boy he has already inherited his grandpa and my love of cars, hot rods and racing. So much so, that I'd even say his early enthusiasm is much more than mine was even in my teenage years. With that growing fascination, I was excited to have my dad join us and go to this years Sherwood Cruise In. It is held every June, but this was the first year Andrew was old enough to really understand it and appreciate it. There wasn't a specific memory that stuck out in my head. We all enjoyed a donut and walked around and looked at the cars. But, what I will always remember are the words that Andrew kept repeating over and over. He'd say "Whoa Dad, look at that yellow hot rod...it's 'beauteeful.'" My favorite was the number of times he'd comment that he had that car too. Of course, he was referring to his collection of Hot Wheels.

After a quick lap around Old Town looking at the car and a pit stop at a friend's birthday party for their daughter, we headed to my parents house in Camas for a belated birthday celebration for me. After arriving, Andrew drove his Jeep and tractor around the cul de sac like a savvy pro. When he got tired of that, my dad and I took him to "Papa's Shop" where my dad keeps a small collection of cars. Once we entered through the door, Andrew looked back at me saying nothing, but given me a look that I could tell meant "Look at this Daddy, can you believe this." Andrew oohed and awed over all the cars. He climbed in them and made car noises at the steering wheel, he looked at the motors and even took a rag and helped Papa clean some of them up. His favorite was the red 29 Roadster and the pickup truck. We left with a handful of Papa's die cast race cars that he has been given over the years. The day was pretty much perfect for Andrew, he got to drive, hang out with his Papa and his Dad, and snag 4 new race cars to play with.

6.11.2011 Andrew 3 1/2 years old

It will be interesting over the years to see where this interest goes. Whether it grows or fades, one thing is for sure...I hope that he enjoys spending quality time with me as much as I did with my dad.

Swimming

Andrew had his last swimming class of this session on Friday. He has improved so much and is almost ready to move to the next level (Eel). He needs to do one more session of Pike, but his report card said that he his almost ready to move up. He can now float on his back, loves putting his head under the water to do a bob, great at kicking, can use a kick board and goes underwater when doing jumps.

Ava loves watching her big brother!





6.10.2011