November

The month of November was quite chaotic for us. We were extremely busy renovating the house. Most every day for the entire month was spent destroying, sanding, painting, patching or repairing almost every inch of the house. Poor Baylee was a trooper. It wasn't really a blast for us so I know she would have rather been doing anything else but watching VHS movies in a cold house with loud tools in the background. After the work, we moved in at the end of November without a kitchen due to a problem with our cabinet order being shipped...but we had propane(heat) so it was tolerated. We had a kitchen within a few weeks and were about 80% done with the house. To this day, I am not done painting trim and hope to get done soon so that I do not have to look at a paintbrush for a while.

In the midst of this, we got Odin fixed, so he had the collar of shame. That was nothing short of entertaining. Baylee found it the funniest by far and even thought the stuffed puppy needed to take a turn with the collar for a while. I walked in the room at one point and she had it on her neck running around....the things that entertain.

Our friends Sarah, Dave, Thomas and Anna invited us over for Thanksgiving since we had less than ideal circumstances for fixing a feast. It was awesome of them and we had a great time.

October

Catching up....

I took Baylee to swim lessons in Sept/Oct at the YMCA. It was a mommy and me class. It was fun. She enjoyed going and while we still haven't conquered putting her ears in the water, we are much closer. She loves to doggie paddle and kick in the tub now. And everytime we pass a YMCA now, "go swimming, Mommy."

We went on an adventure to the Pumpkin Patch with Ms Sarah, Thomas and our newest partner in crime, Baby Anna. We had a blast letting the kids run around. They really didn't care much about the pumpkins but loved all of the animals we found. It was a great time for all of us.

As for Halloween, we opted out this year. We had a Halloween party at MOPS and the kids dressed up and did a parade for the moms. Baylee just wore her princess dress. On Halloween, we had worked at the house destroying what used to be the kitchen and beginning the huge amounts of work on the house. We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant rather late. They were awesome and loaded B up with treats. Following dinner, we ventured to Home Depot to grab more supplies where they again loaded her up with candy. All in all, I can't say it was a bad deal. Very few stops and lots of candy while doing something we would've done anyway.

Baylee loves to have her picture taken these days, so we have a few random pictures from the month as well.

Grandma and Grandpa Lowe Visit

At the beginning of October, Grandma and Grandpa came to visit(yes I'm just getting to this). They only stayed with us a few days, but we definitely enjoyed the visit. Daddy had to work, so Grandpa went with him. We went and visited them and got to ride with them in the combine for a bit. Baylee, Grammy and I went to swim lessons(pictures to follow) as it was our last one. We hung out around the house the rest of the time. Grandpa is apparently a pool shark and beat us all. We had a great time and Baylee had fun hanging with her grandparents.

September

We had a fairly quiet month in September. We had some very nice weather and took advantage of it as much as possible with a few trips to the park. MOPs started back up as well as playgroup. So it was back into the swing of things for us.

Baylee and I went on adventure to Rapid City to see Mom and Dad, Tarrah, Savannah, Heather, Hagan and Lil Brayden. The drive was long....I mean long. I think it ended up taking us about 18 hours to get there with stopping for short breaks only to eat and use the bathroom. Though Baylee figured out around hour 16 that if she said she had to potty, I would stop and she could get out and walk around. It took us almost 2 hours to go the last 100 miles....since she never went potty, I continued to stop when she said she needed to because I really didn't want her to have to suffer having to go in her seat.

We had a great time spending time with MaaMaa, despite her being sick. We left her at home one day and took the kids to Wendys and to play at the playground. We got the chance to do a lot of crafty things while we were there. It was a treat to be able to leave out our projects during playtime and such. Her setup was quite nice. It was quite entertaining to say the least to watch all the kiddos play together.Baylee and I got to hang out with Kelly and Caleb (our awesome friends from Georgia) until poor little Caleb got very sick. But it was still nice to see them even though our visit had to be cut
short.

We did some shopping and went out to eat too. We mostly just hung out and enjoyed the time we had together. It was nice to be able to have Tarrah and Vannah and Hagan and crew meet us there. Pops had to work so he was in town off and on but we were glad for 2 days off he got to spend with us.The drive home was again very long, but we survived it!

August in a nutshell

We started out the month with Baylee's big #2 birthday on the 4th. We kept it small as I am a believer in the fact that she's not old enough to remember it yet. Amber and Tyler came and had pizza and cupcakes with us as well as open presents. Baylee had so much fun with the presents after she got the hang of it.

We spent one Sunday afternoon at our local Nature Center going for a walk and feeding the fish as well as enjoying the learning/play room they have inside.

Baylee and Odin are definitely declared as best friends. They do everything together. Odin is extremely protective of her and comes running sometimes when you are so much as tickling her. He keeps a watchful eye on her at all times and can always be found near her. He's gotten big but neither one seems to notice, they cuddle like always. His last weigh in at 6 1/2 months was 81 pounds. He is such a good dog. He even obeys commands from her big 24 pound self.

The rest of August was spent doing random things. We only fished once. We went to an airshow at the airport. Baylee thought it was too loud but cried when we left. We've spent a lot of time finishing up dealing with the moldy basement as well as just having fun and there of course were many, many outfit changes for the little diva who aspires at this point to be a ballerina.

Our little 2 year old is definitely sassy but is always entertaining us and keeps us on our toes.

Our Utah Visit

When we took Lilli home, we got to stay out there for a few days and enjoy some of the family. Mom also met us out there. We had a blast staying with Tarrah and Rod(thanks again). It was nice to have a chance to see our family again even though it had only been a little over a month since we last saw them.

Tarrah and Mom were awesome and let me go out to dinner for Sushi with my friend Jenn, while they watched Baylee. I also got a chance to see my old co-workers and friends from Interstate Batteries. And got to hang out with a friend from Alabama one night. It was a treat to be able to see some of my old friends.

My cousin Trent had a birthday and we celebrated at Carl's Jr (kid friendly with a playground) and there we got to see aunts, uncles and cousins. That night we all went out for Mexican food and then we got to go over and ride Uncle Spencer's horses for a bit. Baylee was a little unsure at first but after doing it, she wanted "more horsie".

We also got the opportunity to go up and spend a day with Cody's family in Idaho. Baylee got to meet both of her great-grandmas. She also got a chance to help Grandpa feed a baby calf. And she got to have lots of fun just running around and playing with Grandma. We really enjoyed the visit, though it was short.

All in all, we had a very busy but great trip. It was incredibly too short and next time hopefully we can stay longer.

Week 3 of Lilli's visit

We spent a lot of time just playing inside and out. I spent some time getting ready for Bagelfest and even left Cody home with the girls one night to work on some of it. I took the ladies with me to set up the booth. They were so good while I was setting up.

We went to an antique tractor show with Ms. Sarah and Thomas. They were also out there practicing for the draft horse pull. We got to watch those for a bit then walked by the stables and a very nice man let us pet his horse and talked to us for a bit, which Lilli loved, Baylee mostly just wanted to pet his extremely overweight golden retriever. We also had a picnic in the park. We played until there was too much attitude coming from the shorter ladies in the group and we came home for naps.

Saturday, we had the Bagelfest parade. I ended up pulling the ladies in the wagon. I gave them the choice of watching and getting candy or riding in the wagon and throwing candy. Obviously they picked the latter of the two options. It was actually a fabulous day to walk in a parade. It was only 70 and partly sunny. Our ladies threw out all of their candy within 6 blocks, 4 of which had about 3 watchers on each as it was just where lineup was. I told them they could wave and say hi since they threw out all the candy already. Lilli then proceeded to let everyone we passed know the status of our situation in varying forms of "Hi...We runned out of candy because we threw it all out. We will have more next time." She had many, many people laughing and telling her that's ok. She got tired of telling them about the candy and finished off the parade route with a special song that she sang the rest of the time. It consisted of one line that goes like this "when you are loved". It was hilarious. After pulling 65 pounds in a wagon and carrying one end of a banner at 90 degrees for a little over a mile and a half, we hitched a ride in the back of our truck to the car.(I really just still enjoy riding in the bed of a truck)

That evening I worked and closed down our booth at the festival. I did get to watch a little of the Zac Brown Band concert though. Cody brought the girls up to see me and to get some funnel cake. He took Lilli to play for a bit then took the girls home and had a night with them. By the time I got home that night I was TIRED.

Sunday we went out to Walnut Point and took the girls fishing. It was cold when we got out there, good thing I had grabbed thier jackets just in case. Unfortunately, I didn't grab mine, I mean who doesn't take thier jacket when you are preparing a day of outside activities in mid July? Thankfully after an hour and a half or so of being out there, it slowly started warming up. The fishing was pretty pitiful and we only caught a few bluegill. *weeks later, we realized this had to be where Baylee came in contact with Poison Ivy. It's been a battle and still there.

On Monday, we went and had the two ladies pictures taken. It was quite the fiasco and had us jumping around like idiots in the middle of the store trying to get them to laugh or smile right or whatever it took. In the end, they turned out really well and it was hard to pick favorites....some I just like for the pure blooper value. Yes there are a lot of them, be glad, I took a lot of them out of there :)

Tuesday we took Lillibug back home. There were lots of extra laughs, hugs, kisses, and even tears but we really did enjoy her being with us.