Lilli's visit

We are about half way through our visit and I decided it's about time to post some more pictures.

The ladies have both had their fair share of time with the chickens and playing chase with Odin. The girls played in the pool one day when it was warm. It was a little windy making it a bit chilly but they insisted on playing and just laid in the sun for warmth in between escapades in the water. They both helped plant another set of corn and have even enjoyed helping pull weeds in the garden. I took the girls to see Cody at the farm one day and they got to play in the tractor. We've had lots of singing and dancing time while stuck inside due to weather. They have both learned the chicken dance and thoroughly enjoy showing off their moves.

We took them bowling with some of the guys. Robbie, Mauricio, Marcelo and Douglas all joined us for some entertainment. Poor guys were attacked all night by two little girls wanting to play and be chased. The guys were nice enough to oblige.

We had a playgroup in the park with our school friends. They both ran around like crazy for 2 hours. We've also gotten together with friends a few times for a change of pace. We've stayed fairly busy trying to keep the little ones entertained. I couldn't even mention all that we have done but these are the highlights.

These girls get on each other's nerves like only a sister can, but they have really enjoyed having each other around to play with at all turns.

I guess our biggest news would be the ultrasound. We are excited to add a baby boy to the family.

The Whirly Bird

Last Wednesday, it was a beautiful day in the 80's and I blew up the pool and filled it to be warm when we got home from town(well water will freeze your butt off). While in town, Cody called and said he had to fly up to the auction site and we could go too. Baylee was beside herself with excitement as soon as I told her we'd have to play in the pool another day we were going flying. Lilli was less than thrilled we weren't gonna swim but after a little listening, she was game. So we grabbed snacks and met Cody.

Each way was 120 miles so about an hour. The girls had fun pointing things out, from tractors, to cows, to funny shaped lakes and swimming pools. They loved the wind turbines as well. I was more excited about the Amish man out farming his field with a horse pulled plow and the Amish buggies we passed over. They both started laughing and screaming as we circled the auction lot. It made us both laugh. Lilli and Baylee both ended up having fun, shake the baby went less than smoothly and I felt bad about half of each flight. Ugh. But it was still fun and glad we got to take the girls. It was the first time we've been able to fly with Cody in Illinois and much more fun than playing in the pool. (the pic at the top of this post wouldn't upload to the album but you can click it and make it big)

April thus far

We've had a bit of sickness lately but hoping we are over that. It's been really warm here and we've been spending a lot of time outside. It's been a treat for us, I definitely don't remember it being like this last April. We got the garden ready and planted. It's nice to have that mostly done. Baylee likes to help us dig and enjoyed dropping seeds for us.

The chickens are getting big and they have a new fence so they can roam outside and be in the coop still. Oh and clear of the big beast we call Odin. We definitely have a favorite chicken. Big Red is the friendliest and has the most personality. And Baylee grabs that one every time we go out there. She also insists upon holding the black and white ones like they are babies. Chickens don't really adore being on their backs, who would've guessed? At one point I looked down and see one of the chicken's wings not so politely folded up in her hand and the chicken hanging from it, I was told they were holding hands and going on a walk. And I had to follow it with a little talk of why we can't hold hands with chickens. It's been entertaining to say the least watching her with the chickens. I thought they would have gotten old to her by now, not even close!

Easter was pretty quiet. We did an Easter egg hunt with some friends on Thursday. Baylee had fun hiding eggs with me as well as finding them. Of course the best part was the candy, it didn't take her long to figure that one out! But it did take her a while to find her Easter basket Easter morning. She was excited when she did though.

February & March 2010

Our February and March pretty much all blurred together with the business of day to day, or was that the nausea that made it blur? Whatever the case, I'm just now getting caught up on things and getting back with the program.

Our big exciting addition to the family in October is almost as exciting to Baylee as our chickens, though I think the chickens still win as of right now. We actually hadn't told her but one day in the car she asked me "Mommy am I getting a little sister?" Of course I followed up with the whole explanation for her. She's a lot smarter than I give her credit for sometimes, shame on me!

Our big exciting addition to the farm were our 13 chickens. Random number yes but we took the big ones they had(less heat lamp time) and 10 little chicks. Baylee absolutely adores the chickens and goes out with one of us at least once a day to "check" on the chickens.

We had an adventure to the helicopters one day because Cody had lost his phone, we found it behind his seat, but it gave Baylee a chance to sit and play for a minute. She does get her love of flying things from her dad. She still talks about him leaving his phone in the helicopter. Now that we live outside of town they fly over the house quite a bit and she gets beside herself every time she gets to see the red helicopters. Thankfully I usually know who it is by the schedule sent the night before and which direction it came from. This proves to be helpful when she asks if it's daddy, with the follow up question of who is it (if it's not daddy).

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.