Happy 2010!

Wow, I never thought I'd make it to 2010. I'm not sure why... I just thought I'd be old and gray by now. Oh wait... I AM old and gray! But seriously folks... I never could have imagined how happy I would be being married to a super cool guy with two beautiful and healthy children. If you had told me I would be living in Massachusetts... I would have laughed at you! But here we are... in the year 2010. I am not completely sorry to say that I am glad to see 2009 go... it was a good year in that my beautiful son Grant was born. But it was a stressful year. To sum it up: We put our house on the market in January, sold it 3 weeks later, and then moved to Massachusetts. We lived at my in-laws in Plymouth for a month which was really exhausting. Then we finally moved to Natick, the same weekend I found out I was pregnant with Grant! Then I spent most of the year pregnant, which we all know I don't like! But then baby G arrived and things began to get better :-)

Now here we are embarking on a new year... and we just found out we have to move again!!! Our landlord is putting our place up for sale. The price is right, but we don't like the layout of the home. The master doesn't have a closet or a bathroom (which technically means it's a loft and not a bedroom), and the two kids rooms are on a different floor, and both of the bathrooms are located IN the bedrooms... so in order to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you have to either go down two flights of stairs to the first floor half bath, or tip toe into one of the kids rooms and quietly go to the bathroom! Kind of annoying. It's unfortunate because the location is awesome (I can walk to the train station but there isn't any train noise here). We also like that we have a 2 car garage... something we probably won't have in the next place. It has come in handy during the past couple of snowstorms. Our least isn't technically up until February 28, so we have some time... but with two little kids in the house, what usually takes a few weeks to do now takes a few months! We are hoping to enlist the multitude of family members in the area to do a little babysitting so we can pack and move.

A lot of people have been asking me, "Why don't you just buy a place?" Well, we certainly don't have enough money to put down for a house in a decent school district that has all of the amenties we want. We took a loss on selling our house in Virginia last year. While we actually broke even, that meant that we had 0 dollars to use toward our next house. So we had to start from scratch with the savings. We make too much money to qualify for the good loans (go figure), and we don't qualify for any of Obama's nice tax breaks. First... we are not first time home buyers. Second, if you owned a place recently you can get the $8K from the government, but only if you owned your last place for 5 or more years. No kidding... we owned our place for 4.5 years. Saving is also difficult when you have two kids in daycare!!! Daycare is pricey!!!

So... our goal for the year 2010 is to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!! Our goal in 2011 is to BUY, BUY, BUY! Oh, and donations WILL be accepted! :-)

Grant's 2 month stats

Grant had his 2 month doctors appointment on the 30th and the stats are in. He weighs 11 pounds (35th percentile), is 23 and 3/4 inches long (80th percentile) and his head is 39.5 cm (45th percentile). Why do doctors give the head circumference stat in cm??? Very annoying!!! Anyway he is growing nicely and is on target for all of his milestones!!

Merry Christmas

From the Bailey household, we wish you a very Merry Christmas! This blog was brought to you by my BlackBerry!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Trying to capture the elusive smile

Well, this is as good as it gets for me trying to capture Grant smiling. Since I wasn't looking at the camera, and I was trying to make him smile, I sort of cut off the top part of his head. He really smiles a lot now, and he has the cutest dimples, but you'll just have to take my word for it!

Sledding!

We got 10 inches of snow overnight so we decided to take Natalie sledding this morning in our driveway. There is a pretty nice little hill that is at the start of the driveway to our townhome complex. I learned a lot about snow and sledding today. I'm from Florida and this was my first time sledding (ever!) First, I didn't know that dry, powdery snow is better for sledding. I also didn't know you need it compacted down first before you can go flying down it. We had 10 inches of snow, so all of that needed to be compacted down, otherwise, the sled (and you on it) would just sink into the snow.

Natalie... not such a big fan. I think it scared her a bit. Maybe because the guy plowing the sidewalks came by at the wrong moment and scared her. Or maybe because she was sitting in my lap and I was screaming and laughing. That might have scared her, ha ha. Natalie much preferred Todd pulling her around on the toboggan sled (and not down a hill). I really want to go out to a BIG hill somewhere and go sledding. Babies can't really go though... and since someone has to stay with Grant... it's usually me since I'm his only source of food! Oh well, maybe next year!

Now it's time for hot chocolate and fluff!

Making Christmas cookies

This year, I decided to make some Christmas cookies with Natalie. I coincided the cookie making festivities with my parents and brother's visit for Grant's baptism. Thankfully I did, because everyone knows I have no idea what I'm doing in the kitchen! But my mom does! The cookie dough was easy to make, but then I realized I had no idea where my rolling pin was! It's somewhere in the garage in a box. So instead, we used an O'Douls beer bottle for rolling out our dough! HA! Natalie had fun helping Nana and Mommy "mix" the dough. Then she got to do the cookie cutouts in the dough, which was equally as fun! We had a star, a Christmas tree, a candy cane, and a stocking.

We waited to ice the cookies until after Grant's baptism party on Sunday. She licked all of the icing off before eating the cookie. Everyone took turns frosting their cookies with Natalie. (Sorry I cut off your head CoCo!) Merry Christmas everyone!

Grant's baptism

Grant was baptised today! It was so much fun... my brother Cory is his Godfather and Todd's sister Helen is his Godmother. He didn't cry and slept through almost the whole ceremony. The other baby who was baptised didn't have his father there- he was in the hospital with pneumonia! How awful! It made me really thankful that we all have our health, although Grant seems to have a little cold. He hasn't had a fever, and he's been eating well (no problems breathing).

Afterwards, we all went to John Harvard's for a late lunch. A good time was had by all! Good food, good friends and family... all on Grant's behalf! He was such a good boy, and Natalie was so good too! Cory bought her a SUPER pretty dress that had a little tiny doll dress that came with it that she put on her baby doll Meredith. Oh my gosh, she was SO adorable. I'll post some pictures soon. Everything went well and it was so good to have (most of) our family here for the ceremony! Love my baby boy!!!!

Natalie and Grant meet Santa Claus

Here is the annual Santa photo! I am including comparison photos from the last two years with Natalie too! So you can see how she's grown. She wasn't afraid of Santa at all! It was awesome! 

We were kind of dreading the visit with Mr. Claus at Natick Mall... but she did great! She even told him she wanted a train set for Christmas. Grant was sound asleep through the whole thing (what's new!). Santa even remarked that Grant was dead to the world! :-)

Cutie boy

I just wanted to post this cute picture of Grant on his playmat. He likes to bat at the animals with his hands. Or rather he accidentally bats at them with his hands and then gets a look of wonder on his face! So cute!

6 week update & Thanksgiving drama

Grant is going to be 6 weeks old on Friday! He is already starting to smile and he has THE cutest dimples. He has one on each side of his mouth, and then one a little farther out on his left cheek that is much deeper. It's SO darn cute. We are still working on tummy time and playing on the playmat. He isn't sleeping that much more at night (oh Grant...) but when you do put him down, he's almost always quiet and will eventually fall asleep. (Unless he has gas, which is often, but a couple of burps and a good long toot and he's ready for some shut eye!)

Thanksgiving was drama filled again in our house! For the second year in a row, we've had to make a trip to the emergency room! (Last year, I had a bladder infection down in Florida). This year, while playing with Aunt Betty, Natalie got a case of nurse maids elbow in her left arm! I just read on Wikipedia, "There is a slight predilection for this injury to occur in girls and in the left arm." YEP! She was screaming and crying hysterically and even chocolate brownies wouldn't calm her down. At that point we knew she wasn't just being a drama queen! So Kathleen and Helen, a daycare director and nurse, respectively, gave her an ice pack and put together a makeshift sling. This is something right out of MacGuyver folks! They used a piece of cardboard (maybe from a cereal box or something) and a cloth napkin. Viola! A sling! Of course, with a sling on, she couldn't sit in her carseat to go to the emergency room. So they had to take Kathleen's car so she could sit in Seth's booster seat. Thankfully, she fits the height/weight requirement!

Well, I get a call about a half hour later that they are coming home. Apparently, the sling worked! When she got to the hospital, the nurse asked her if her arm hurt and she said no! They had her do a variety of exercises with the arm (flexing this way, reaching that way) and it seemed fine. The nurse said that the sling might have allowed the elbow to re-set itself. Hooray for KK! And poor Aunt Betty. She didn't mean to hurt Natalie! No permanent damage, ha ha. Natalie talked about how great Seth's DVD player was that she watched in the car on the way to the hospital. Thank goodness Nana and Pop Pop are getting her one of those for Christmas! (Shhhh!)

In other news, we went to the annual Wilmington-Tewksbury football game. Nephew Gordon plays on the offensive line for Wilmington. Wilmington won!!! It's a very big deal to win this game! (Think Florida-Florida State; Largo-Clearwater; Auburn-Alabama, etc.!)