More holiday fun in Plymouth

Every year, Todd's brother and his family come up from Maryland to spend the week after Christmas with the family. Now that we live in Massachusetts, we only get to see them twice a year.

 So we spent 4 days in Plymouth at Todd's parents house among the chaos of the large Bailey family. There were 19 for dinner!!! Not to mention 3 dogs (thank goodness Koal didn't come!) It's always chaotic and so much fun.

And each year, the kids, because there are so darn many of them, do a gift exchange. Lauren got Natalie this year, and she got a super cool singing and dancing Foofa doll (from the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba). She also got the littlest Pet Shop. Lauren had this toy at her house, and Natalie always plays with it when we visit. Natalie and Grant, because they are still little, got showered with too many presents to even mention on this blog. I couldn't believe it. They really spoil her rotten!

And as usual, there was lots to eat and drink. Whew... was there ever!!! You know Todd loves to take pictures of his food...

Everyone got a little Grantie snuggle time in.

Lastly, this is the first year Grant got to be in the Bailey cousins annual photo. This is it... the family is complete, although Carole would love for me to give her an even number "10"! Here is the annual picture!

Christmas fun

Sorry, I just realized I never blogged about Christmas!

Because Grant is too little to travel (with cold and flu season upon us), we decided to stay home for the holidays this year. This actually is probably something we will do in the future as well. I think we will stay home for Christmas, and maybe travel to my parents house after the holidays (maybe for New Years... who doesn't love January in Florida???)

Christmas Eve, we went to church, went to Uno's for dinner (it was about the only thing that was open). Typically, we would eat Chinese food, but we had just eaten Chinese food a few days earlier and even still had leftovers in the fridge. Then we came home and Todd read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Next, we put "reindeer food" out on the lawn. This is a birdseed/glitter concoction that Maureen gave Natalie. Then we put out a plate of Cinnabon cookies, carrots, and egg nog for Santa and his reindeer and THEN it was time for bed!

In the morning, Natalie discovered Santa had been at our house! He brought her a wooden train set and train table. Really, she could not have cared less about the other presents she got. She would open them, and then go right back to the train set! It was comical. She got lots of other fun gifts, including magnetic dolls from GiGi, a portable DVD player and digital camera (kids version) from Nana and Pop Pop, and a beautiful dress (that mommy wishes came in her size) and a foam doll set for the bathtub (you can put clothes on her that stick when wet... kind of like paper dolls, and kind of like the magnetic dolls!) from CoCo and Brie. In the days following Christmas, she started to get more interested in her other presents, like the doll pack and play and other baby carrier items Santa brought her, as well as the Curious George puzzle.

Grant got a few baby toys from Santa and a stuffed dog from GiGi. I love the face he is making in this picture!

Overall, it was a GREAT Christmas! Only the second time in my adult life that I've gotten to spend it in my own bed! Whoo hoo!

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! :-)