Small town hassle

This week marked an unwelcome point for our Baylee, she had her first sickness at just under 8 months and it just happened to be an ear infection. It was so sad. She went from being a little grumpy, assumed due to teeth by me, to breathing like a freight train and sounding like a seal within 36 hours. She never ran a fever and is yet to touch her ear. You can imagine how excited I am that she's one of those! :)

I also was introduced to small town struggle as I was on the phone for an hour and a half calling every family practice and pediatrician in a 10 mile radius to have no one want to see her, due to not accepting new patients or patients under 5, one office would see me on Monday. I was irate, trying to find someone to see my child who was struggling just to breathe. I finally found someone 30 miles away, and loved the office. It's a family run practice and I couldn't have been happier or more relieved that I decided to take her to the doctor.

She tried to be happy through it all and was smiling at the office despite the fact that she felt like poop. She couldn't even cry and after 2 days of antibiotics and dimetapp, she still can't cry yet. It's so pitiful! I am so glad she is feeling better and she should be totally better by Tuesday according to the Dr. And have to say, glad to get the break from carrying her all day.

I was suprisingly happy when she sat and pulled all of the videos off of the shelf and out of their covers. Despite the mess, it meant she was on the mend. She's still improving at pulling herself up and gets faster at it all the time. We are working on balance still and that's slow going, but soon! And we still have a chomper and working on no biting as it hurts worse every bite. I guess this is my payback for being a biter as a child.

We lack pictures from this week as well as stories since it was pretty much sit and hold Baylee most of the week and she was feeling bad before we figured it out. Plus, it rained all week except while she was really sick, of course, so we didn't go on any adventures. We will have better news and more pictures next week, we hope!

Adventures

This week, we stayed inside a lot. It's been cold, windy, and rainy pretty much everyday. There was one day where we were able to go for a walk and Baylee got to play at the park and it was nice for both of us to get out of the house! Baylee is moving on....literally. She is now able to pull herself up all over the place, she is even able to pull herself up in the bathtub. She still prefers to walk, with assistance of course. It wears out my back, but I like my lady happy and soon she will be doing it on her own.

There was one day when Baylee was supposed to be sleeping. I heard her on the monitor making noises but not unhappy ones. So I cracked her door just a little and watched her for a few minutes as she had pulled herself up in her crib and was bouncing up and down. So much for nap time, it was so cute that we played for a few minutes before attempting nap time again. It still throws me off a little to see her standing up in her crib when I go to get her after she wakes up.

She has the four front teeth on top and just the two on bottom. I tried to get a few close ups to show off her deadly chompers, it wasn't easy but I got a few where you can see some of them. She bites me all the time anywhere she can, my shoulder, my hands, my knee and last night we were playing on the floor and she does what I think is an imitation kiss and we were taking turns, she did it to my nose, but bit it instead. Ouch! It's a good thing she's so cute.

The Easter bunny came...not from us. Uncle Cort and Aunt Sandra sent Baylee the nicest basket. It was filled with all sorts of suprises and some really ADORABLE clothes and dresses. Baylee got to pull it all out and did well with that. Then she tasted every single item and is loving the stuffed bunny and the pez dispenser minus the pez of course. It was very sweet of them.

I thought I'd update while everyone is still sleeping. Happy Easter!

New exploration

Baylee is becoming quite the climber and daredevil. She hasn't yet figured out that she can control the things that hurt her. Soon enough I guess. She doesn't play in her entertainment seat anymore, she just likes to climb over the tray as much as possible.

She is still loving the under as well.

Baylee got her first Graham Cracker this week. She loved it of course!

Back to normal

It has been so nice to be in one place for multiple days and to be getting back on a routine for all of us. Baylee is trying to get back on a schedule is about 75 % there but by next week we should be done with that.
Cody is loving his job, despite the fact that his first day on the job his car got hit in the parking lot. Fortunately it wasn't bad and it was an honest man and left all of his information for Cody. It's nice for him not to be responsible for much other than to fly. He gets to fly in surrounding states and comes home with new experiences so far everyday and it's only been 3 days of working.
Baylee has already gotten better at sitting up by herself so now I'm not constantly sitting her up when she dives for a toy that is just out of reach. One of her front teeth finally poked through last night so she should get a little relief now....until the next one of course. Yesterday, she played in the kitchen floor while I fixed dinner. That was fun for me to have her in there. She's been saying "Da-da" nonstop and mimicked my "yay" yesterday while we were reading books. I'm more than thrilled that she has just this week been excited to read books....she giggles everytime I pull out a new book to read and even when we turn pages.
Today we went for a walk and to a park that is down from our house. It's not the good park, but it was fun for being close to the house. I let Baylee play in the grass for the first time. She of course just pulled it out. It was fairly warm (50's) and sunny out today. It was nice for us to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

Long Awaited Answers

We finally have a home. To fill in those we have not yet spoken with...We did not quite make it as far as Utah. Cody had a job interview in Mattoon, IL on the way and he got the job and luckily we got to stop. We were more than glad to turn in the Uhaul after only 550 miles rather than the expected 2000 to Utah. We are going to be embracing small town life, something I have not done for a very long time. It's 50 miles to the closest Target, we have a Walmart, but really, it's not the same. I have everything I would need in the town, maybe not a choice like I would in a larger area but we are going to enjoy it. We saw the entire town in about 2 hours while looking for a place to rent. The pickings were few and far between and most were unacceptable at that. This is a very old place and we feel lucky to have found one of the few places under 50 years old in the town.

Cody will be working as a corporate pilot for a home/farm supply store called Rural King. It is as of now, only a year contract while the recent pilot is deployed. But we feel blessed for Cody to have a commercial job flying. A good many of our friends are still without jobs and of the ones that do have jobs most had to rely on pre-flying jobs that were held. Cody should be getting to fly a pretty good bit and has upgraded the size of his helicopter he will be operating a little. I know he's excited for that. And thrilled to be able to just fly instead of having to deal with all the baggage that went with being Chief Pilot. The outlook is great now!

We received a visit from Grandma Burell before we left Georgia. It was thoughtful of her to drive up and see us and we had a good visit. Baylee did a lot of exploring. As we packed we moved stuff out and so she had a lot of empty space to roam. Though her and the kitty both knew something was up. Our last days in Acworth, Georgia were hectic and long and tiresome.

It was a long drive in the snow, rain and cold weather, but Baylee was a trooper. She was the perfect companion until the last half hour and I can't really complain about that. We were welcomed to Mattoon, Illinois by our astranged friend, snow. Lucky us! Baylee and I had some pretty boring days in the hotel room while Cody was interviewing(which consisted of working a full shift all day then back the next day). Then cooped up while we were looking for places. It was torturous for her not to crawl on the floor for almost 4 days. She had the bed and that's all her mean Mom would grant her. Can you blame me? She now has all kinds of new avenues to explore and get used to.

While we were waiting for Cody to start work, we went over to Omaha and visited my mom, brother and Heather. It was fun. Unfortunately we missed my dad. He was out of town. We had a great time, Baylee learned to go under the table and was nonstop purposely routing herself to do that. She likes to off road over any and everything. She absolutely loved Belle, my parent's Italian greyhound. She could hardly control her excitement as it came out in half yells, semi-squeals and some unknown type of sounds. She loved our trip minus the 1100 more miles round trip of driving. It was the last bit of driving all of us want to do for a while. Lucky Kitty got to miss out on the drive for that one, but we really enjoyed our trip.

Baylee's accomplishments... She's now 7 months. She pulled up 2 times(balance is still pretty crazy though) and has pushed herself to sitting on her own 3 times now. Still not trying really hard on either but those were big steps. Her off-roading skills are impressive and if there's something out of the way, she will go to it to go over it. It's so stinking cute. Baylee has been helping to get things in order at the house and right there to eat the tape, boxes, cords, and anything else abnormal she can stick in her mouth. Baylee is eating some real foods now like bread and muffins and soft things as green beans, mashed potatoes, refried beans, and tiny pieces of banana. We will add more to this list soon.

We have the majority of the house unpacked and organized! But final organization and arranging will be done by the end of this week. Monday Cody will start work and Baylee and I will go back to a schedule for her and carrying on as normal. I cannot even explain how excited we all are about normal again and oh yeah WAY less stress!

News of all kinds!

First off, we have had another pretty chaotic week as Baylee has officially gotten 3 more teeth since my last posting 1 week ago. She has 4 total and is rather funny in the order 2 bottom middles and 2 top sides. Poor girl. I feel so bad for her but don't find it necessary to load the poor child up on tylenol quite yet. She probably hates me for that right now, but she'll understand. Shes actually been rather great considering.

We did get a chance to go for a walk one day this week and just went down from the house to the lake and played at the park a little. Baylee was not yet fond of the slide, in due time that will change. It was nice to get out and about despite the overcast weather. We went and hung out with Kelly and Caleb for playgroup on Valentine's Day for a while and decorated brownies for our boys. And mainly just enjoyed friends. Speaking of playgroup, I am, however, a little sad that I was just getting to know some wonderful new friends and will definitely miss getting out with the ladies and just relaxing and enjoying the company.

As most of you already know, but for those of you that don't, Cody's employer, Silver State Helicopters terminated all employees and shut down business on Feb 3 and filed Ch 7 bankruptcy the following day. We have been without a job and trying to figure out the best plan of action for us at this time. It's a hard deal with the size of the helicopter industry and the fact that the job market was overloaded with pilots(over 500 terminated) and few jobs to offer comparatively at this moment. The market will eventually work itself out but may take a while. Today we got official word, the one hopeful job prospect here didn't work out over in Lawrenceville, as the company was unable to regain the contract, therefore unable to hire Cody. We will be moving back to Utah. We are planning to leave Monday granted everything works on the tentative schedule. We are both thrilled for the fact that we will be close to Lilli for however long we can until Cody gets another job flying and in the meantime he will probably be delivering fuel again(details to follow as known) and possibly attending school to receive an additional endorsement for his pilot license.

We will be leaving some really great friends here, but the helicopter industry is small and the chances of us running into each other again, very high. So, once again, we are packing ... we made it a little over a year here. I really should stop counting but this is move # 18 for yours truly. woohoo. We will continue to keep everyone posted. And at the rate we are going by the time we get to Utah next weekend, Baylee will have all of her teeth. Haha.

IT'S LATE, SORRY!

I do send my apologies for the lateness of my update. It's been a busy and chaotic time for us the past week and a half as we are trying to decide what to do with ourselves/family.

As for Miss Priss, she is just wonderful. She's still into everything. We've moved from the Bumbo seat to the high chair for eating all the time and it's a thousand times better. She realized it goes faster if I feed her and she usually doesn't "feed" herself until she gets full now. We are proud to announce the arrival of Baylee's first tooth. She has a new item to explore with her tongue and is constantly playing with it. Good luck at getting a peak! We recently went to the Dr for her big 6 month check up. Of course more shots. They still get me everytime, no I don't cry but it's so sad. She's still on the small side of the chart between 25-50 %. She's a whopping 15lbs 2 oz and 25 1/2 inches tall. The Doc was impressed with her strength and even at the fact that she's still doing the army crawl instead of really crawling, it takes more upper body strength. As of lately, she wants to stand instead of sit but hasn't yet figured out how to pull all the way up, so we are working on that as well as her balance. She's improving at walking with help, so we may just skip the crawling stage for now, but this could all change tomorrow. You know how it is!


We went to the park for a walk this week while it was warm. That was fun for us. I have to say it has been nice to have Dad home with us to play but I know we are all just antsy and that he is bored. Maybe soon we will have answers for all of you. We will definitely keep you updated as to our status as we know it. Until then, enjoy our pictures!