Our sweet Bailey is 20 months old today (I can't believe it) and as rambunctious and sassy as ever!
Bailey is quite the ball of energy and we spend most of our days finding creative outlets to channel it. She loves to play dress up and is very seldom without a princess dress or tutu on...we have had to hide them in order to get out the door without them some days. She definitely has a mind of her own and a strong will. I know that is very good, yet some days I wish she weren't as head strong. We've picked up a few habits that we aren't too fond of, like chucking items (food, plates, cups, etc.) and throwing temper tantrums when we don't get our way, but we are working on them and trying to be patient. She is very talkative and has added more words to her vocabulary: up, more, waddle-waddle, mine, Olaf, water (wa-wa), and a few others. She has no problem telling us what she wants and when she wants it, but the added vocab definitely helps. Her favorite song to sing and dance to right now is Wheels on the Bus, we can do this over and over again. She can be very much like a sour patch kid...one minute she's sour and the next very sweet. She loves to give kisses and hugs to just about everyone so be prepared if you see her coming your way. Some days I forget that she is one and not 13 because the attitude that we get...the eye rolls, the sighs and pouts...makes we wary of what's to come. But I wouldn't change her one bit. Every moment with her is an adventure and I am so fortunate to be a part of the ride!
We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It started with a fun Christmas Eve of baking, surprise gifts, holiday pajamas, hot chocolate and White Christmas. Then we spent Christmas morning over at Grandma and Grandpa's house with Uncle Mat and opened lots of presents, had a yummy Christmas meal with Daddy's famous turkey and watched Secret Life of Pets. We wore ourselves out midday and came home to take a nap only to wake up to no power for over an hour and no cable...which wouldn't have been a big deal except our Chiefs were taking on the Donkeys for SNF. So we opened up our gifts from Santa by candlelight and boy, he was good to us! Luckily we got power and cable back right after we scored the second touchdown of the game and we got to watch a fun Chiefs victory to end the night! We thought Bailey's first Christmas was a lot of fun, but I have to say her second one definitely was more exciting because of her squeals of joy and delight whenever she opened a new present.
Bailey helped make the apple custard strudel pie
Finished desserts
An Olaf coloring book!
We love Rudolph
Tequila even got an early present
Look who we caught on camera!
Trying to get a pic of everyone is not that easy
Got one
Bailey laughing at the hats and masks Grandpa brought back from China
Pretty much sums up the excitement from the day
Helping Grandpa unwrap his gifts
Trying on Grandpa's moccasins
A stamp that says Bailey in Chinese
We love our Princess Anna dress (and haven't wanted to take it off since)
Thanks Aunt Debbie and Uncle Steve!
Grandpa's Home! After a few months in China, Grandpa got home a few days before Christmas and Bailey was so excited to see him (as were the rest of us). We are spending as much time as possible with him until he has to go back to work in the new year. One of our first things to do with him was make Gingerbread houses and Bailey had so much fun!
Blowing a kiss to Grandpa once we heard he landed in the States
Having too much fun with two of her favorite guys!
Sharing a laugh
From the left...Grandma's, Mom's, Dad's and Bailey's
Another view
Happy Family
5 peas in a pod
From holiday lights and parties to baking and decorating cookies, we really got in the spirit this year and tried to squeeze as much holiday fun out of the season.
Paulie's Penguin Playhouse
Watching the Deanna Rose display
Done with holiday baking
Getting ready for the Advanced Financial Christmas party
Pretty in her party dress
Baking cookies with Grandma
Brian's holiday party at Union Station
Santa pic
Every year, we always head back to Brian's hometown the weekend before Christmas to see family and good friends. We always spend the night in St. Louis on Wednesday and do a little shopping and playing around before making the rest of the drive. Plus we got to do a little indoor/outdoor night swimming in the heated pool! This year, Brian's parents were in North Carolina for Erin's graduation so we didn't get to see them over the holidays, but we did make a stop in Louisville to see a lot of his aunts and uncles and enjoy some really good pizza at The Post, owned by his friend Nash. It was so good to see everyone and introduce them to Miss Bailey in person. She was a little wired from all the driving, but she had a lot of fun! We stayed the night outside of Louisville and got a little more swimming in before we headed to Mayfield. We stopped in to see Granny and open her Birthday and Christmas gifts, had a wonderful dinner with the Graniers (and made a bit of a mess!) and then headed to the lake house to stay with Miss Lynn and Uncle Brad. Bailey had so much fun with the twins and Barrett, running around with the dogs and playing hide and go seek with Uncle B! With some bad weather on the way, we decided to get up really early and hit the road but luckily a lot of the roads were treated and we made it safely back home.
After a little indoor/outdoor night swimming
A little shopping in STL
Dino fun at the St. Louis Science Center
A little late night ice cream in Louisville
So much energy
Swimming in Louisville
Working at Power Truss
Looking at Granny's present
Making a mess at Grandma and Grandpa Schorrs
Redecorating
An intense game of Bug in the Kitchen
We made it home to snow on the ground and Miss Bailey couldn't wait to play in it. Grandma came over and we bundled up with the dogs and headed out back. We couldn't get her out of it and she had so much fun, even when Grandma nailed her with a snowball to the face!
After Grandma nailed her in the face
Tequila loves the snow
We had our last few Wiggles and Giggles class of the year and even had a little recital along with some of the bigger kids. Bailey loves her class and classmates so much, we can't wait to start the next session in January!
The Pompeii exhibit opened at Union Station so we decided to check it out with Uncle Mat and Grandma. We also spent most of the day at Science City and ended up seeing Santa for a bit. We were really excited to see Santa until we were left alone in his lap and he decided to touch our chin...let's just say we were not happy and had to get out of there really quick. But it was a really fun day downtown!
We didn't make it through the Pompeii exhibit
Completely passed out
Not cool, Santa
Me and my baby girl
Our weather has definitely been all over the map this December so whenever we got a chance to get outside, we took it. Bailey loves going on walks to the park and exploring the dirt and mud wherever we go. We also met up with Christine and Lily and hit up the park...Bailey is convince Lily is her bestie and had so much fun with her!
Bailey insisted Lily swing with her
How cute are they?
We decided to take it indoors on a really cold day and spent the day at Wonderscope. They renovated a few rooms and Bailey loved to explore all the new things.
Practicing
Riding with a girl that kept yanking out her bow, but she is playing along anyway
Very serious about our artwork
Caught a fish
People let me tell you 'bout my best friend...Bailey and Tequila are pretty inseparable and as much as Tequila pretends not to be that interested, he loves her so much. She often likes to test the boundaries with him and luckily he is very patient with her. But he is always looking out for his little sister and I will catch some sweet moments every once in awhile. We did celebrate Tequila's 11th Birthday this month and Bailey had so much fun picking out presents for him and watching him enjoy them!
Playing Doc McStuffins
Not that happy about the Christmas present from Grandma
Checking to make sure she is ok
I can't handle the cuteness
He just curled up right on top of her to snuggle
Speaking of snuggles, they may be few and far between, but we take them whenever we can. She will nap occasionally when she wears herself out and her favorite place to nap is in our arms. Time, slow down!
Bailey is such a sweet, sassy and silly girl. We have so much fun watching her grow and know that she will be such a great big sister. Here are a few more of our favorite pics from this past month:
The sass in this one is strong
Toddler yoga
Touchdown Chiefs!
Yep, she ran errands with Dad like this
Our new party trick
Dental hygiene is important
Youngest UMB employee
Watching the snow fall
Not impressed with how big this coat is on her
We are still working on the basement, but good news...the carpet is supposed to be installed tomorrow (fingers crossed)! We will keep you updated on the progress, we are very anxious to get it all together. Baby girl #2 update: we had another doctor's appointment this morning and baby is growing right on schedule. She is very active (and has a really strong leg) and appears to be another night owl just like her big sister.
Hope you and your family enjoyed the holidays and have a happy and safe New Year!
It's been about a month since our last post about the basement and boy, has it been busy. Through all the holiday fun and madness, we have been using every free moment to work on the basement reno. It's not as easy as it may seem, especially with a wild toddler running around demanding lots of attention, but we are making it work on nights and weekends and even some much needed nap times.
Who needs naps? Not me...
We started tackling the stairs right after most of the drywall was hung. If I have not mentioned before how much I hate wallpaper, let me reiterate...I HATE WALLPAPER. Seriously, you may think it will look nice, but when (and it will be when) you have a change of heart, you will totally regret your design choice. No matter what spray you find that says it will magically remove the wallpaper with ease, it won't, and you will have lots of scrapping and digging to do. Oh, and if you happen to put it up in a place that is hard to reach prepare for the wrath and curses telepathically sent your way by the next homeowner or unfortunate SOB that has to remove it.
Unfortunately for us, the previous owners put up the most hideous wallpaper in the high and narrow stairwell to the basement. We had to rent scaffolding and buy lots of remover to try and get it down, and still spent lots of hours scraping. I worked for a brief time for the SAIA (Scaffolding and Access Association) where we spent most of our time educating people on safety, and I can tell you that as hard as we tried, it is doubtful we would have met the strict safety standards, but fortunately we made it through without incident or injury (minus the pains suffered from endless scraping). Once it was down, Brian had to patch the less than stellar drywall that was underneath and then got to priming and painting.
Bailey and Tequila thought it was a fun game to try and find new ways of sneaking over the barriers set in place to get closer to the action, which kept us on our toes and caused a nice little dent in the wall. Luckily they're both cute and it wasn't too much damage, and Bailey got to help for a bit too.
My Rock Star hubs scraping away
Such a big helper
Ok, that's not really helping...
Primer up!
New coat of paint...ignore that awful extension cord
Before and after of the stairwell (minus some finishing touches)
Once we got the stairwell done and had access to our stairs once again, we started priming all the walls. This really helped us see the space come together. It's amazing how many gallons of primer we went through, but luckily we scored an awesome deal on primer at ReStore, which cut our costs about 75%.
A prime view from the stairs (I love puns sometimes)
From the old back room
A view of the HVAC closet and doors
One last view
Next on the agenda was painting the ceilings and walls. We may have underestimated the amount of paint we needed, so there were lots of late night stops at the paint store. Luckily, Bailey really enjoys the hardware store, especially this time of year with all the Christmas decorations out. We decided on Eternity by Benjamin Moore and the more I see it on the walls, the more I love it.
We also decided to order the carpet for the basement, which means we are now on a deadline to get everything painted, finished and ready to go once the carpet gets here. It added a little extra excitement and adrenaline, until we found out the carpet is a bit delayed, so we are still waiting for the call letting us know when it is officially in and ready to install. So while we were painting walls, we also broke out the crown moulding, baseboards and doors and started getting those painted and ready to go.
Painting's a family affair
Bailey thinks she is a big help...and clearly not staying on her designated cardboard
Got back on before she was busted
Playing our up and down game
Good things she's pretty cute
Also painting the crown moulding
Notice Tequila laying in dust
Once we got most of the painting done (we still have lots of little things to do), we started focusing on the base of the stairs. Under the stairs we are making a cubby for Bailey and her little sister to play in and we wanted to make the stairs look finished so we added some wood and paint. We also extended to bottom step all the way to the wall to open it up and make it feel less cramped at the bottom of the stairs.
Finishing touches on the stairwell
A broader look
We have the stairs almost finished, but have another coat of paint to add once the wood filler dries, then we'll share pictures. We also started hanging the crown moulding and adding some more finishing touches that we can add now before the carpet comes.
Tacking up the first piece
We are going to be taking a break for a few days to visit friends and family in Kentucky this weekend and we are crossing our fingers for a call about the carpet while we are gone. But we'll keep you posted on our process. We also have a special project we've been working on for Bailey that is starting to shape up nicely, but we'll save that for another time.
Hope you and your family have a wonderful week! Until next time...
XOXO,
Sara, Brian, Bailey, Tequila and Baby Girl Schorr #2
