Birthday Smilebox

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Happy birthday Ava!!!

I can't believe my baby girl is 2 years old! How time flies. I officially have a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, is that possible? Lol. Here are some pics of the diva herself on her new tricycle from her Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Dave (oh how you guys spoil her! :) and in her new princess playhut from Mommy and Daddy. I am making corned beef and cabbage for dinner (A Bailey tradition for luck and prosperity in the New Year) and we are having cake after dinner and Ava has a few more presents to open.

Our baby girl has been such a wonderful joy and blessing to us. She is one of the sweetest children I've ever met...when she wants to be, that is, lol. She loves to give hugs and kisses and say, "I love you Mommy, I love you Daddy, I love you Aiden!" She is talking more every day and I love to hear the funny things that come out of her mouth. She is very helpful and it makes her so happy to please us. On the flip side, anyone that has ever witnessed one of her tantrums is in for a real treat, lol.

Happy birthday my sweet, beautiful girl! 2010 promises exciting things for our family, and I can't wait to experience it all with you!

Favorites

Just a few of my favorite pics from yesterday and today!

Classic Ava

This is from today (Christmas day). The kids were playing their new Wall-E V-Motion game. Ava had gotten Wall-E stuck and refused to let me or Chuck help her. It cracks me up because it is typical Ava behavior--and her facial expressions just make me laugh! Lol.

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful morning we had! Santa came to the Bailey household and the kids were so excited. It was a frenzy of wrapping paper and Aiden had pretty much everything unwrapped in less than an hour, lol. He and Ava are both very happy. Both kids made out very well!
Aiden's loot: a Jay Jay jet plane race track, a marble race set, a Cars V-Motion game, Frank the Combine from the Cars movie, Luigi and Guido from the Cars movie, Spiderman slippers, a Cars flashlight, a kid K'Nex truck building set, a firestation for his Hot Wheels city, a set of 12 books for beginner readers, the Light Bright cube, and several games--Hungry Hungry Hippos, Lets Go Fishing, Ants in the Pants and Cooties. Ava received a Magnadoodle, 3 princess barbies, 4 dress-up dresses and a shoes/tiara set, an oven mitt/apron set for her kitchen, Dora slippers, a Wall-E V-Motion game, a Wall-E flashlight, a Mr. Potato head Pet Pals set, and her big present was a vanity with a play curling iron, blow dryer and phone.

I have TONS of video clips that I need to get uploaded and edited, and then I promise I will post them in the next day or two. For now, here is a slideshow of pics from this morning.

Merry Christmas and we hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!

Picnik.com

My niece Cassi told me about www.picnik.com, a photo editing website. I am loving how easy it is to manipulate photos there. I love how this picture of Aiden turned out, so I wanted to share it. Check out picnik if you love editing your photos!

Just some pictures before the big Christmas weekend. We took the kids to see Santa again tonight (The Santa at Bass Pro Shops here is free and ten times better than the Mall Santa--they even give you a free picture and everything!). Aiden loved seeing Santa this year, but Ava was NOT a fan, hence no picture for you (Chuck took one of me holding her next to Santa, but it is not nearly good enough to post online, lol).

Also just a few pics of us playing outside and enjoying the nice weather. It wasn't cold enough to need a coat today (60 degrees!) but Ava insisted;)

Ava tea party

This is a fairly long video, but Ava was being cute having a "tea party" this morning while Aiden was sleeping in. She really loves the new teapot she got from her friends Katelyn and RJ!

Ava's birthday party

Ava had a wonderful time at her party this afternoon--it was a big success! Very hectic having so many kids in the house at one time (17 kids total!) but they all had a blast. Ava was a bit confused by the party and kept telling everyone who arrived "Happy Birthday!" Lol. She did like trying to blow out her candle though (everyone ended up helping to get the job done) and especially enjoyed opening her presents. We are so lucky to have so many wonderful friends to help her celebrate her birthday!

Here is a slideshow of pics:)

Ava's cake

I finished Ava's cake tonight. We are having her birthday party tomorrow since so many of her friends are going out of town for Christmas/New Year's. We're just having a very laidback party for our playgroup at our house. I am excited for her--she loves being the center of attention, so it should be a good time! I still can't believe my baby is turning 2!

Selective color

The kids are sleeping in and the internet was down, lol. I think this one turned out cute!

Photo Friday

Just a couple cute pics to brighten your Friday:)

School pictures

Aiden's 3K school pictures finally came back. Here is his class pic (his teacher Mrs. Vance is on the left and the aide, Mrs. Davidson, is on the right). His picture turned out ok--I wish he didn't have that one strange piece of hair sticking out behind his ear! Oh well. My handsome little man is getting so big! The third picture is last year's picture for comparison:)

Christmas photo shoot

While Aiden was at school yesterday morning, I attempted a photo shoot with Ava in her Christmas dress. Christmas cards have already gone out (I got 50 completely free but they had to be ordered by the end of last month, lol), but I still wanted some good shots of her in her adorable dress (Target clearance last winter, $4!). Sadly, Ava did not want to cooperate and I didn't really get anything good, but I'll try again before the month is out:) Her scar is still visible on her cheek, but it's fading, so hopefully it will be gone sooner rather than later. I really like the pictures of Chuck holding her--she was definitely done with the camera by then! :)

Intervention?

Some babies around here have been hitting the juice pretty hard. Do you think it's time for an intervention? Lol...

10 Truths I've learned since having kids...

These were in my head this morning so I thought I would write them out...

1. No matter how big you think your house is when you buy it, add in two people (or even just one!) with all of their gear and toys, and your house becomes infinitely smaller and seems completely inadequate, lol.
2. No matter how much you think you love your pets before you have kids, things change once you do. You probably won't ever feel the same way about them again. I realize this isn't true for everyone...but it's definitely true for me.
3. Your children will not need you for hours, but then as soon as you become indisposed doing something important, like making dinner or a phonecall, they need you DESPERATELY.
4. The number of times that I have said, "I love you," and, "Please leave your sister ALONE!" are now probably tied.
5. Bedhead never looked as cute on anyone as it does on your kids:)
6. Before you have kids, you will make lists of all the terrible things that your kids will "NEVER DO." After you have kids, you throw that list out the window when you realize it's impossible to control your children's actions.
7. No matter what you make for lunch or dinner, there is a 99% chance that someone won't like it.
8. Your children will embarrass and infuriate you in more ways than you ever thought possible, but at the end of the day you will tuck them in, kiss their faces, and let it go, because that's part of being a good parent.
9. The more expensive a toy is, the more likely it is to be completely ignored 80% of the time. But if you spend $.50 on a piece of junk, your kids will spend the entire day fighting over it.
10. Nothing has ever melted my heart more than hearing my kids say, "I love you, Mommy."

Happy Monday!

Baby love

Ava and Aiden wanted to play "babies" all day today. Ava interchanges between basically any doll or stuffed animal in the house (today it was Grover, as you can see) but Aiden always wants his Ollie doll. I bought him that baby right before Ava was born, and my friend Susan had already had her baby (Oliver, aka Ollie) and since he was the only baby Aiden knew, he named his baby doll after him. Ava has one that looks very similar and I asked Aiden what her name was and he said, "Ollie number 2, of course!" Lol. I'll have to post the video later, but Aiden told me that his baby doll Ollie was actually his little brother, since he doesn't have a baby sister any more because she is a big girl, and he needs me to have another real little baby. Nice try--but this baby factory is closed for good buddy!

Ava was pretending to "go night-night" with Grover. It lasted about 3 seconds, lol.

Thankful...

I know Thanksgiving has come and gone, but I didn't get a chance to do a post about what I am thankful for, so I am going to do it now.

I have literally a million things to be grateful for in my life right now, but writing them all down would be kind of pointless. Because really the main thing I am thankful for is the chance to make happy memories with my family and friends. At the end of this life, if I am living in a hospital bed and I can't remember my own name or anyone else that I ever knew, at least I'll leave behind happy memories for my loved ones. All I really want in life is for my family and friends to know how much I love them, how happy and blessed I am to have them all in my life. Sometimes it's easy to wonder what we're working so hard for, why we're striving to make more money, buy a bigger house, have nicer things. We live in a materialistic world and sometimes the true goal is easy to lose sight of. Meaningful memories make for a meaningful life.

If I haven't told you lately, I am thankful for you.

“Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely.”

I am thankful that I have a warm heart, and family and friends to keep it that way.

Home again!

Well, we survived our trip:) We left last Friday, spent 14 hours in the car, and arrived in Ohio. We left for Michigan on Tuesday afternoon and stayed until yesterday, when we headed back. Overall, it was a good trip. Ava had some issues with teething and just being cranky and clingy, but Aiden was wonderful. We really couldn't have asked him to be better--he even did great in the car. At around the 12 hour mark on the trip up he said, "I just can't take this any more!" and Chuck and I had to laugh. I was done too! 14 hours is a loooong time to be in a car, especially strapped into a carseat. Ava just kept asking to go home, poor girl.

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have. I didn't take any pictures of the kids with their Grandpa Chuck, Aunt Deb and Uncle Bill, Grandad, Uncle Matt or Uncle Dave, and I only have one picture of Aiden with his Granny and two pictures of the kids with Aunt Lizzie. I really should have taken more pics, it makes me sad to think that we won't see them all for at least a few months!

I wish I had more to tell, but really it was just a nice trip. Thank you to everyone for letting us stay with you! Thanks Deb for watching the kids while we went househunting. We were able to weed out a lot of bad houses from our list, and we're still searching for the perfect home while we're waiting for our house to sell. Thank you Liz and Dave for having us over to dinner in your amazing new house, I love it so much!

Enjoy the pictures!

Mixed up Cherry Blossoms

We are back! I am going to do a separate post about the trip, but I wanted to post these photos of some mixed up Cherry Blossom trees that we saw. We stopped at a rest stop in northern GA yesterday, and apparently the warm weather there has confused the Cherry Blossoms. They were just barely clinging to their leaves, but were nearly in full bloom. So beautiful and strange! I couldn't resist snapping away and sharing the pics.

Weekend pics

We had a fun weekend. Saturday we spent a few hours at The Rock Ranch, and the weather was perfect! Saturday night, we had 5 of Aiden's friends over to play while their parents went out on dates--it's an idea my friend came up with called Babysitters Club. It has really worked out wonderfully these past few months and Chuck and I have had two nights out that have been great. All the kids did awesome on Saturday! Sunday we did chores around the house and someone even came to check out the house (fingers crossed!). Here is a slideshow of pics from the weekend:

Time-out for litterbugs

I thought this was a cute story and I wanted to share it. The other day we were driving and Aiden saw a plastic bag on the side of the highway that someone had thrown out the window. He was upset and told me, "Mommy, someone littered! We need to go and find that person and put them in timeout. Don't they know that littering is bad for the environment? Anyone that litters needs to go in timeout, or else our whole world will be covered in trash!"
I almost cried when he said that--such a simple thing for a 3 yr old to say, but something with so much meaning at the heart. And the fact that he knows how to correctly use the word "environment" had me pretty amazed too! Lol.

Craft corner

Just a few pics of some drawings the kids have been up to this week. Ava LOVES to color with crayons and has been "drawing" things and telling me what they are. Her favorite things to draw are "ah-ahs" (monkeys) and babies:) Aiden has been practicing his tracing skills and is just now starting to "free draw" characters and creatures. He likes to draw monsters and ghosts the best. (if you click on the pictures I put text on them to explain what the kids drew).

This is a turkey hand craft we did--Aiden really wanted to cover the turkey in feathers!

Aiden in the hot tub

I meant to post this video last week, but am finally getting around to it. He really loved "swimming" in the hot tub!

Smarty pants

I had a rough day with the kids today (ok, mainly Ava, lol) but I wanted to share this nice comment from Aiden's 3K teacher. He had a rough start to the school year, so it is great to see that he is really coming around and doing well in school. When I picked him up today his teacher told me, "You know, I am sure you already know this, but Aiden is really smart! He is always the first to answer when we talk about letters or numbers, and he knows every kids' name in all the 3K classes. He even remembered that Ben is in Australia, and he's been there for 6 weeks! We can tell you work with him a lot at home, he's really smart!" Ben is his friend who is visiting his relatives and Aiden reminds me almost daily that Ben went to Australia, where kangaroos live, lol.

We've always thought that Aiden is pretty bright, but it is nice to hear it from his teacher too! :) We're proud of you, little man!

Ava counting

I took this video today at the pond, feeding the ducks. You can't hear her very well, but she counts the statue's fingers (4 of them, his thumb is hard to see, lol) and then I ask if she can count in Spanish and she says, "no, dos, tre, taco" which I think is pretty good pronunciation for a 22 month old! She can count to 8 in Spanish unprompted, and surprisingly she doesn't skip 4 and 7 like she does in English, lol. She is completely in love with St. Francis, as you can see from the pics following the video!