January

Pathetic, I know. But here it is none the less.

Faith (Cody's sister) came to visit at the very end of December and stayed with us for 10 days. Baylee was quite the pickle trying to show off for Aunt Faith. Definitely tested my patience, but we were so glad to have Faith here with us! Unfortunately, she got another dose of our bitter, nasty cold and I don't think she was warm at any point during the whole stay. We didn't do much besides hang out and shop while she was here. We went bowling one night with our friends Robbie and Fabiano, it was a lot of fun, Baylee loved it especially. We did visit the Arch in St. Louis and took a ride to the top when we took Faith back to the airport. As many trips as we have made to St Louis, you'd think we would have done this before now.

And honorable mention is deserved in that Faith watched Baylee one night so that we could go see Avatar. It is a rare, rare occasion we get to go out childless and it was very fabulous. Thanks again Faith!!!!

We had a decent snow storm right as she was leaving. It piled our drifts up to about 4-5 ft at the highest point. We finally went out and took advantage of the drifts a few days later.

We visited the Chanute Air Museum in Rantoul, IL. It was a pretty poor excuse for an Air Force Museum and is in dire need of funding. It is on the old Air force base that was shut down in the 90's. About 80% of the aircraft were in horrendous shape, which was less than impressive. We are glad we went and can say we've been there, made our contribution and doubt we will ever return. The historical society of Rantoul had quite an extensive display and that was probably my favorite part second to the prisoner of war items.

The rest of January was spent hanging out in the somewhat warmth of the house.

December

Our December was also pretty busy. We started off unpacking in December and managed to get the Christmas stuff up the first week. I was ready to start our holidays and it was a little more fun than unpacking other boxes of our stuff. We let Baylee do most of the decorating of the tree, which partially adding to the falling of our tree. It was very bottom heavy despite our encouragement of different spots to hang ornaments. She went to plug in the lights on her own, Odin ran past it with his big self at the same time, neither of us were in the room and in a flash, down it came. I think the series of events all happening at once caused the fall. It then fell 2 more times that weekend and finally broke the stand resulting in a ghettofied fix of our stand. Our tree remained quite crooked but at least it was stable. She was VERY proud of her tree and wanted to have her picture made with it often. We had our first decent snow. Our driveway caught all the snow. I got stuck going back into the driveway after running to town. Blowing snow was not our friend. We quickly learned the value of snow fences. Cody had to rescue me...and I know he didn't hate having to move snow in the backhoe. Baylee loves to play in the snow this year, complete 180 from last year. She loves to make snow angels. Every time I turned around she was on the ground making another and another and another.
Christmas was a lot of fun. Baylee was a lot more calm and polite than I expected from a 2 year old. But it was enjoyable. I think she changed outfits about 20 times. I was ordered to wear the crown for a while. Odin paid his dues as well. (still the most patient dog EVER) We all got really nice gifts and had a great time.

December was still filled with lots of working on the house and now are only left with odds and ends....thank goodness. I finally feel like I can breathe even though I look around and see things that need to be done. Though somehow I'm having no problem looking past the painting :)

I also had an untimely battle with migraines 4 in 5 days, compared to my 2 or 3 a year. My little Baylee was the sweetest thing. Not only was she well behaved while I was hunkered in my cave of a room, she would constantly just lay by me and rub my arm while repeating in a whisper "I'm so sorry Mommy". She was then very concerned about me taking my medicine from the doctor and made sure I kept up with it. And then this sweet little girl pulled out the big guns calling me Adrien whenever her little heart desired. The attitude on this fiesty little fireball is ridiculous to put it nicely. However, after the shock of it all, I still am amused when she calls me Adrien, though I do go through the lecture of who I am to her and what she should call me then turn around and snicker to myself. It has been about a week straight since she's pulled that one out, so we are making progress!

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.