Lucky us...

I'm having some problems with a very stubborn sneaky malware that got past all of our programs and can't be detected right now. I'm waiting on another response and some more help from a great website of volunteers. I'm trying not to do much of anything right now other than necessary. For those of you that do check often, we will post once we contain this thing and get the comp fixed.

Always learning

I am loving watching Baylee learn new things. It is crazy to see how fast she picks up some things. Despite still fighting the night time(I will get to that) she is a blast.


We had so much fun fishing last weekend. Baylee wanted to help a lot of the time, we really just need to get her her own pole, soon. very soon. I am proud to say that I caught a decent sized bass finally. It was fun, especially since I was the only bass catcher of the day, so I got to gloat a little. I have to defend myself on Baylee's shirt and side ponytail, if I have to fix it 1800 times an hour, you can deal with looking like you just stepped out of Napoleon Dynamite!

We had a pretty lonely week. Cody had a helicopter break in Tennessee and drove home with the VP he was flying and he had to turn around and go back have the mechanic meet him and then take it in for normal service. Normal service on a helicopter is not like a car. He was gone all week with the bird until this afternoon. We missed him!

Baylee and I went and did the usual to the park and for a walk everyday. I even made us take a chance and we got rained on one day, but lucky for us the park is 1/4 mile away and Baylee was covered. She had fun swinging and watching birds and other kids. They are having baseball tournaments at that park right now so we got to listen to music and then the announcer of the games while we played. She of course is still walking all over the place.




We are trying to get Baylee to wear a hat, not going so well still, but at least she keeps it on for about 2 minutes now. Her latest words...uh oh and butt. I always say lets change your butt. That one is my fault. Of course she picked up on the least glorious word. She's still trying to climb despite it not working well yet. She tried to climb out of the bathtub and gave me a small heart attack, it was not pretty but it would have been successful had I not grabbed her first. Still chewing on everything she can find and moving things from here to there and under there and in this and it makes me laugh. She can also point out my nose when asked where's mama's nose, but not her own yet. She knows her tummy as well!

After almost nine months of pony and pigtails, she has finally gotten curious and started pulling them out constantly. Me, I was fine when she left them alone!

For the nighttime, well, after waking up 7 times in 3 hours one night this week, I decided it was time to get serious about breaking this habit of hers. It was hard for me to do, I let her cry for 24 minutes the first night before I went in. I went in total 3 times that night and she woke up 5 more times. I ignored her. I didn't even pick her up except once for two nights to calm her down enough to breathe, otherwise I rubbed her back until she went back to sleep. Each night we cut out 2 wakings and last night she only woke up once and that was at 10:30, and I hadn't even gone to bed yet. Hallelujah, my arm is tired! There is hope for us!

Our weekend looks pretty boring. Cody is having to work today and just called to inform me, he now has to work tomorrow as well. Happy he was not. Even though he just had to babysit the mechanics most of the week, it wasn't really off days. So he won't get one this week. I guess payback for the 2&3 day weekends. We've gotten some crazy storms last night and today so I guess we would be stuck indoors anyway.

And a fisher is born....

I feel as though we walked at least 1000 miles this week. Baylee is just loving to walk and look around. I have enjoyed it myself. She does always try and runaway and go places on her own. It's pretty funny. We had to get our little walker some real shoes, the cloth ones weren't cutting it and she grew out of 2 different pair in 2 weeks!

We did the normal routine last weekend....fishing on Saturday. They mowed around the pond finally, so we didn't have to sit/stand in over a foot of weeds. We had a Taco Bell picnic. It was a lot of fun. However, Baylee was quite curious to say the least. She did go for a small swim in the water...not purposely really. She was covered in mud. (I apparently didn't get a picture) It scared her spitless for a few minutes and I hate to admit it but it made me laugh. You would think she'd then want to stay away from the water, nope not Baylee. She wanted to throw all of her toys in and kept getting as close as I would allow, so fishing for me was more of a battle of keeping Baylee out of the water. It's very shallow where we fish but still. I did catch my first bass in Illinois and after adding it up my first bass since we fished Jordanelle in Utah on the weekends. I was excited. It was a small guy but much more fun than the bluegill. They at least put up some fight.

This fishing trip also marked Baylee's first attempt to fish on her own, she just couldn't take it any more. She helps me reel but she kept going to one of Cody's poles and checked it out and kept trying to use it. It was the perfect weather for fishing and so we ended up staying out later than normal. Good thing since Baylee had some drying out to do.

Baylee and I went walking or to the park everyday during the good weather, though had more rain this week. We met some fun people and kids at the park. And oddly enough I met a lady from Georgia, she had a son about 3 weeks younger than Baylee. Baylee was so intrigued by him.

I also did my good deed for the week. We had a new neighbor moving in. She didn't have but her minivan full of stuff to move in, but she's right across the hall which means 2nd floor. She has a bad knee and was struggling and is a single lady. I went and, carrying Baylee since she can't scale the stairs well yet, carried boxes, bags and what I could. When it got to the heavy stuff I had her watch Baylee and I finished moving all of her stuff in the house. She then was waiting on furniture to arrive and so I had her hang out with us and got her some snacks and kept her company. In the end, I did benefit beyond being nice and exercise....the cable guy had to come and I snagged him and he fixed our internet that has been beyond bad for the past 2 weeks. So that worked out for me. I didn't think that I would make that many trips up and down the stairs and not mind it. Funny how it's different when it's for someone else and not yourself.

For our 4th of July, Cody's work had a bbq at their hangar at the airport. The county was putting on an airshow and fireworks. We went mid afternoon and hung out. It was nice for me to meet some of the people I hadn't met yet that Cody talks about. Baylee had a blast walking around and watching the other kids and entertaining the older people. Groups of kids would walk by and Baylee was quick to jump in behind and tag along, following the big kids like she was part of their group. It was amusing to say the least.

They were giving helicopter rides right next to our hangar. It was killing Cody because it's the first airshow we've been to where he was not the one giving rides. It was monumental for him and sad at the same time. Baylee wasn't a fan of the noise but got used to it. The B-25 scared her too. It was loud, but he didn't go out as much as the helicopters(they gave only 3 minute rides with 2 helicopters). She did end up taking a nap after about 3 hours of walking around. Everyone of course loved her. It was by far the smallest airshow we've been to but also unique. They did acrobatics at night. We had a bad attitude about that at first because we didn't think you could see him. It turned out even cooler at night than during the day. The smoke was crazy in the night and it made it that much more dangerous. His plane was very well lit and we really enjoyed it.

Then they had the fireworks. Baylee watched about half of them. We were the closest hangar to them, the public was down a ways from us, so we got the very loud end of things. She jumped quite a bit but then I plugged her ears and she tried to sleep. We were thinking she was going to scream the whole time because of the noise. she was great! Of course, I had my camera, but well my battery died as soon as they started to do the fireworks. Honestly, they put on quite a show. It was far far far better than I thought and much longer. It was impressive and ranks up with the best fireworks shows I've ever seen. The weather was great yesterday. With a high of 75 it was a perfect day to be outside. We had a great time.

Even better.....Cody is off for the rest of the weekend. 3 day weekend! These come much more often here and we are loving it!

Quiet Week

We had a calm pretty routine week. We spent most of it at home playing. Fortunately the weather was nice this week until Friday and we got to go for walks and to the park to play everyday.

Baylee is a walking machine. I have been having her walk into stores when we go. She walked into the post office one day. It was rather entertaining. It took us 15 minutes to get about 50 feet. Everything was a distraction. People walking by, cars driving by out on the street, the rock flower bed was heaven on earth for her, and everyone that passed had to stop and talk to us mostly saying they couldn't believe how little she was and walking like that. She's very stubborn and independent and does not want to hold your hand at all to be guided where to go, she can make it on her own.

I have, by far, done more arranging this week than ever before. She likes to rearrange(hide) everything. Carrying things is so much fun and putting them in places where they can't be seen...even better! Needless to say, I have no idea what I'm going to stumble across when opening, looking behind, under or in any item in the house. It's like Christmas all of the time.

Back to Mattoon

First off, we had a fun Father's Day with Cody. Yes, of course we went fishing. It was hot but nice. Baylee loves seeing the fish. We did dinner and presents on Saturday since I knew we'd be at the pond. I won't argue with celebrating for 2 days.

Sunday night we left to go to Omaha. We had a good trip there other than being detoured 150 miles to go around the flooding in Iowa. I knew there was a detour but I wasn't expecting a route that long or I would have gone a different way. I got to experience a few things I'd never done before...

Hagan, Heather, Teague and I went to the dog track. I had never done that. Proud to say after a lesson from Hagan and a few tips from Heather and Teague, I invested $5 and played the whole rest of the time on it(10 of 15 races). Even after a crazy final race where I bet most of my winnings and a crash at the start changed everything, I still walked away with an extra $1.20. (big winnings, haha) But of us, I was the only one that ended up ahead, probably beginner's luck, but I will take it. It was a lot of fun, though we were the only ones under the age of about 50 there. We hung out in the casino that night, where I put my $1 in a penny slot machine, of course I lost it. But I had fun watching Teague play and we met some great ladies from Atlanta that were up there for their sons who were in the College Baseball world series. It was nice to talk to some southerners.

I also had my first experience with sushi at the Kona Grill. I have to say, some of it was pretty stinking good. Some, I did not care for but did not despise. I guess I was unaware of what I was missing. It helped to have such knowledgeable sushi connoisseurs eating with me. Yummy.

We went to the park/lake one day. We got to take turns on Hagan's kayak. That was more entertaining than I expected and again first time.

It was nice to have Mom watch Baylee for me one day/night so that I could go hang out with Hagan, Heather, and Teague. It was strange and a first time thing for me, I didn't even call other than to say how late we'd be. Mom had a little pool for Baylee to play in. My sweet moody little lady loved it one day and hated it the next, but it was a blast watching her when she loved it!

All in all, we had a wonderful trip, minus the drive. Baylee however pulled out a few new things while we were there. I know she's pretty much connected to my leg but she took to Mom easily. She now has a pout that she does whenever someone she's not sure about so much as looks at her. Hagan and Teague were not taken to easily, but yet, she had no problem at all with Dad. Moody little mama's girl! She also can climb stairs, had no idea! And she wins the awards for the best and most high fives given in a day. She still absolutely loved Belle(parents' Italian Greyhound) Belle even did not mind her. Of course it could've been that Baylee got a kick out of feeding her and would throw her food on the floor and crack up whenever Belle ate it. Belle got more than her fair share of Kix this past week. Baylee actually called Belle "Out" the first day since that's what she calls the kitty, but very quickly picked up to calling her "buh". She chased poor Buh all over the place.

Dad got to come home on Thursday night, we spent Friday with him. We had to leave the house a good bit that day as they had 3 showings to disappear for. We went garage sale hunting. That was fun and we found some great deals. It was great to see little Brayden. He's so cute. I had a good time shopping with Mom and just hanging out with her. It was awesome that Teague could come up from Houston. It was so nice to see everyone, wish we could've stayed longer, but we missed our Cody.

We left to come home early early Saturday morning. She was so excited to see Cody when he got home from work. Later that night she did something that amazed both of us. Cody said Hi Baylee and her unprompted response....Hi DaDa. How on earth did she know she was supposed to say that back to him?

She's becoming an excellent walker and goes all over. She has discovered that throwing stuff in the trash is fun so I have to keep an extra close eye on that. I show her something once and sometimes she just picks right up. That is one of them.

We went fishing today. The trip was less productive than normal, but we still didn't get skunked. Cody got to fish a lot while we were gone and went to a different lake since he didn't have to worry about finding spots for Baylee. I'm glad he had a little fun while we were gone.

I'm so glad we got to go see the family and Baylee could see all of them as well. I am also happy to be home, I hate living out of a suitcase, I've paid my dues with that back in the Alabama days. Glad to be home to Cody. It makes me wish that one day we can be close to family though. We had a blast and I could write pages upon pages of things we did while we were there but I will spare yall that! Hope everyone has a great week!

Big sigh of relief....or so we thought

We took Baylee to the Dr this week to double check her ears and FINALLY, they have cleared up. Me, being apparently insane for even thinking it, was very much looking forward to sleep. However, our beloved, precious, dear, little Baylee now finds it routine to wake up in the night hollering and pitch a super tantrum until she gets out of her crib and is in my arms or better yet, our bed. Of course that's breaking all of the rules we've been told to go along with parenting, but during the ear infections, I needed sleep and found that I would actually get a little by doing either of these. As I have told many of you, it's now game on. Right now it's an even draw. Baylee wants to not sleep , I want to sleep so at times I give in and at times she gives in. Hopefully we will get this problem fixed soon enough. I do not have near the sympathy of I have recently since I know her ears are finally better. Now she's just being spoiled. My problem with letting her holler has been that the consideration I have for my single neighbors. I'm working on not caring as much though. We are thrilled to have her ears cleared and hoping we dont' see the return of infections ever, but we are not unrealistic, so hopefully at least not for a while. Mission: unspoil Baylee will commence after Grandma's house of course, pointless until then.

Baylee in her new found freedom is becoming quite the little pill. Her and our memory card for the camera had a little misunderstanding and I lost all of my pictures and videos that were not uploaded to the computer or DVD and now have a non-working memory card. I have played around with it a little unsuccessfully. At this point it will not even reformat. We have very little pictures this week due to this little episode. I learned, no matter how crazy Baylee is being and how much she will not nap, don't give in and work on the computer while she's awake. ***I am very stubborn by nature and continued all during nap today (instead of packing) to play with card, and finally got it to read in the computer, haven't tried the camera yet, but we can hope! YAY! I have my pics back.

She has also decided despite not sleeping well at night, she's not going to nap either. It's truly been a blast. I guess this is payback for her sleeping through the night since she was 6 weeks old.

She has gotten one new tooth this week bringing the total to 7 and one more that should pop through any day. The walking is still getting better everyday and she's crawling less and less. She added hat to her collection of words. We had to do some rearranging of her room this week and her bookshelf got put in the closet. I was very tired of taping her books back together. Her cardboard books are still out for her to play with and look at, so she's not deprived of books totally. She just lost privileges.

My favorite new thing of this week would be her newest trick.....I see you

One night this week, we went over to the good, big park and went exploring from there for our walk. We found a neighborhood we love. It has trees covering the sidewalks and was for this area very very very nice. We explored the park a little and found some really neat toys there. They even have a merry go round still! They also pay for the upkeep of the park by pumping oil in the middle of the park, that was odd to us, but you think about it, pretty cool.

Baylee and I are heading out Sunday night to go to Omaha. Yes, I'm being optimistic and hoping she will sleep in the car and if not, well, it's no different than any other night and she can holler at me while I drive, eventually, she will get tired of hollering. But don't have to worry about the neighbors in the car, so Holler on Baylee! We are very excited for the vacation and to get to spend some time with the family before they all move away.

Walking Walking....