Baylee's First Thanksgiving

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as amazing and fun as ours was! Holidays are just so much more exciting with little Baylee around to celebrate them with! :)

She looked so adorable in her "My First Turkey Day" outfit! I got the onesie from Carter's and I made the tutu myself. It was so easy to make and there is absolutely no sewing involved! I got more tulle so I'm hoping to make her one for Christmas day as well. This little chick is just so festive!

I was blessed to be able to make Thanksgiving dinner this year for my husband, sisters, dad, and cousin Joseph (who is also Baylee's Godfather). My sisters and cousin came up the night before and we made pumpkin pies, spice cake cupcakes, and chocolate dipped rice krispie treats for dessert! Yum! It was so nice and much needed family time. For our dinner spread we had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, biscuits, and deviled eggs! It was so good and we all stuffed ourselves!

My new addition to the feast this year was homemade cinnamon butter. Oh my goodness! It was delicious on the warm biscuits! It will definitely be a holiday staple from now on.

I am so thankful that I have such a wonderful family to spend time with. After we ate we just and laughed and played with Baylee. It was one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had. There was many other family and friends that I would have loved to have there, but they were definitely with us in spirit! :)

I wont lie though...when the dishes are done and the last of the leftovers are put away it is super exciting, because that means it is officially the Christmas season! We do Christmas big around here, so I can't wait to involve Baylee in all of our traditions. I have already been rocking out to Christmas music and putting stuff up around the house today. I'm so excited to catch of picture of Baylee's reaction to our Christmas tree...I think she will love it!

This was her face when I told her Santa was going to bring her presents...

I think it's safe to say she's destined to be holiday obsessed just like her mama! ;o) Enjoy the beginning of the holiday season everyone! XoXo

4 Months With Baylee!

My little buggie is 4 months old today! She has changed so much in the past month...I can't even believe how fast she's growing! We have officially moved up to 6 month size clothes, size 2 diapers, and at her doctors appointment a few weeks ago she weighed just about 13 pounds and was 23 inches long! She's such a good eater that she likes to keep Mama busy day and night feeding her! I am so glad we got the okay from her pediatrician to start her on solid food this month because she's ALWAYS hungry and I think that might help keep her a little more satisfied. :)

So, one of my favorite things about this age is that she has started grabbing, holding, and chewing on her toys. I think it's just the cutest thing ever, and she got so many cute toys at my shower, so it's been fun to break them all out and see which ones she likes best! She's teething like a mad woman so pretty much anything she can fit in her mouth right now is money! 

That, of course, includes her favorite thing of all...her hands! We lovingly call them her "handburgers" because they are seriously always in her mouth! :)

Oh, and Mama's fingers are apparently equally delicious! ;)

Baylee also celebrated her very first holiday ever this month...Halloween! We dressed her up as the cutest little zebra ever, and, in true baby fashion, she hated her costume with a passion! LoL She only kept it on for about a half an hour, but it was long enough for us to get some pictures. She rocked her "Wickedly Cute" outfit though! We had a nice, low key Halloween this year. I made chili and cornbread and my sisters and Brian's parents came up. We just watched movies and handed out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Baylee definitely seemed to enjoy herself with the family around!

She still loves tummy time and is getting sooo good at it! I swear one day she's just going to up and crawl away! She can still roll over on her back, but is choosing not to do it as often as she was. I think she's just too eager to scoot. She hasn't rolled from back to tummy yet, but I she sure tries!

Baylee has also officially discovered Stella Lou and we just think she is the neatest thing to stare at and touch. She is absolutely tickled by her, and loves touch her soft fur!

They're totally destined to be BFFs! And, as you can see, she has mastered sitting in the Bumbo chair! (Thank you again Aunt Jenny!) She loves to look at the world from a different point of view than lying down. Plus, its so much easier to play with toys when you're sitting up like a big kid!

In not so fun news, my baby has decided to stop sleeping. She totally teased me with 6 and 7 hour stretches, and then one night a few weeks ago she decided she was going to be hungry every 3 hours and we haven't turned back since. Mama is exhausted! I have tried everything to get this kid to sleep, but no luck. I even invested in a Merlin's Magic Sleep Sack and, so far it helps for naps and keeps her warm, but as soon as she realizes she's hungry, the fact that she's warm and cozy doesn't seem to matter anymore. I'm hoping that this is just the 4 month sleep regression and that by 5 months we are back to sleeping through the nigh...we are both pretty tired all the time!

How cute is her bed head though?! Heehee She's still my little snuggle bunny, though, and I love it! After she plays for a while she usually gets super sleepy and we snuggle on the couch for a bit before I put her down for her nap. It's precious mommy daughter time that I will always cherish.

I am absolutely looking forward to this next month and celebrating the holidays with my girl! She has all her cute Christmas outfits ready to be worn for all the festive things we are planning on doing! I used to think I loved the holidays before, but now they're so much more special with my daughter! Kiddo and I have become quite inseparable, and I wouldn't have it any other way! :)

Hope everyone has a Happy Turkey day in a couple of weeks! Look for a post the day after to find out all about Baylee's first Thanksgiving! We can't wait! *Gobble Gobble*

Our Love Story

 Today I have been married to the love of my life for one year! Since this blog has centered pretty much 100% around Baylee, I figured our first wedding anniversary was a great time to document where the love that created her all began! :)

Brian and I first met at the wedding of my best friend and his brother, Jenny and Phil Tibbetts. We met and talked a bit, but nothing really spectacular happened. That day, as fate would have it, I caught Jenny's bouquet and Brian caught the garter. We thought nothing of it at the time and years later even forgot that it had happened!

Brian was enlisted in the Marine Corps and stationed in Hawaii at the time, so we only saw each other on the rare occasion that he would come home on leave. We usually both already had significant others, so, again, thought nothing of it. Then one leave block in September 2011 we were both unattached. We hung out at the Mt Baldy lodge with a big group of friends and family, and it was that night that I realized I had feelings for him. Through a series of events we ended up talking/texting on the phone for a couple of months. During one conversation, Brian jokingly said "You should come out here to Hawaii." Little did he know, I was just crazy enough to do it. I booked a ticket and on November 10, 2011 flew out to the Marine Corps base on Oahu.

I ended up staying out there for about 4 months, and during that time we had an absolute blast together! We went on some adventures and I made some great friends. It didn't take long at all for us to fall in love. :)

Some of my first nights on base:

Thanksgiving at Chili's with the Fulchers:

The beach on base:

Christmas and New Year's Eve with the Furlongs:

Working on Brian's 1955 Ford F100:

My Dad came to visit us at KBay:

We rented a pontoon and took it out to the sandbar:

And did some beach camping:

Other random pics from Hawaii:

It was definitely an adventure, but it went by too fast. Brian was honorably discharged while I was there, so it was time for me to come home. He had to hang back and finish his truck so that it could be shipped. We were separated for 5 months. It was the longest 5 months of my life waiting for him to come home. I missed him so much it hurt. We were finally reunited in August 2012 and immediately started out our life together. We knew this was a forever love. Then, in January 2013 Brian popped the question at Disneyland, and, of course, I said "YES!!!"

We immediately started wedding planning and set our date for October 18, 2013. We were wed in Mt Baldy church and then partied all night long at a reception hall in Upland. It was an absolutely gorgeous day that I will never forget.

After our wedding we proceeded to have the most amazing honeymoon ever! My aunt hooked us up with the presidential suite at the Marriott in Anaheim on our wedding night, and then the next morning we went to Disneyland. That night we flew red eye to Jamaica and spent the next 5 days lounging on beaches and drinking rum. It was spectacular and absolutely worth every penny!

About a week after we got home, we moved into our new house and around 3 weeks later found out that the best thing in the world was about to happen to us...we were preggo with our little princess! We couldn't believe that it happened so fast, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Baylee has been our best adventure of all, and we are so happy that she is a product of our love. :)