Picture Time!

Little Bailey has started dance classes. My mom got her all of her clothes and shoes for her birthday, and she's been so excited to start ballet and tap!!! She's still very young, so I'm trying not to be a stage mom and just let her have fun. The studio put up a closed circuit tv this past Saturday, so I got to watch her tap class. Well....all I can say is that she's having fun!!! Smile. There are only 2 kids in her class right now and I almost think that's all the teacher can handle. She even has an assistant and they both work really hard throughout the class. It seems that, at this age, sometimes one of the kids (cough*Bailey*cough) needs some special attention. She's only been to 4 classes so far, but I'm already preparing myself for the big recital at the end of the year. My inner voice says the following: "It's OKAY if my kid is the one that refuses to actually dance during her number and stares at the floor the whole time!" Actually, I don't think that will be the case. If anything, she'll just run wildly around the stage and do her own version of the choreography while the other little girl perfectly executes the movements from her designated place on the stage.

My father would be so proud of her equestrian skills!! We went to a small circus in Piedmont last week and shelled out the $4 for her to ride this pony in a circle for a few times. Riding the ponies is her favorite thing to do...she has done it at the Orr Family Farm, the fair (a couple of times) and now the circus. The girl has no fear about stuff like this - you might notice she's the only kid on any of the horses. That's because all the other kids started to cry. Not Bailey! She yelled "Look at me!!" the whole time. She also wanted to ride the elephant, but we drew the line after the pony. I think this decision was mainly because none of the adults really wanted to hoist ourselves up onto a huge elephant to go with her.

Bailey hardly ever gets sick, but this picture captures a recent bout with a stomach bug. Doesn't she look pathetic?? We were supposed to go to her friend Brody's birthday party that day and I think she was almost more upset about not being able to go than the fact that she didn't feel good. Fortunately she didn't have to use that bowl you see (as you can tell, I picked a really ugly one in case I couldn't stomach to clean it out and just decided to throw it away instead!!!).

I don't know why this is so funny to me. Most nights I'll go in and check on Bailey when I'm retreating to bed. Usually, she has been in bed for a couple of hours by that time. Several times we've found her in weird positions and I just wonder what went through her mind in the process of settling there. If you can't tell, she is sleeping at the foot of the bed with her comforter folded backward to cover her. She has also recently ditched traditional pillows...she'll either sleep without one at all or just bunch up (as she has here) a stuffed animal and sleep on top of it. Silly girl!

This is Bailey in her new big girl car seat. I agonized over changing from the 5-point harness, because I know it's safer, but the car seat we had was just getting too tight for her. Knowing that bulky sweater season is on its way sealed the deal for me on transitioning to the booster. She LOVES her new seat - I think she was so used to the feeling of complete immobility in her old one that this one is so comfy. However, we learned a few important lessons on the first day of using it. My mother-in-law discovered, 1) that she can (and did) open the car door from the new side position. Unfortunately she did this while on the highway, which was scary for both Jeanne and Bailey. We obviously can activate the child safety on the door, but we just weren't prepared for that since she's always been in the middle where she can't even reach the doors. We moved her to the side location to make room for the infant car seat that will soon be installed. The other thing we learned is that Bailey can just undo the seat belt. Jeanne stopped in the mall parking lot, got out of the car and proceeded to walk around the back of the car to the other side to get Bailey....the way she always does it. When she got there, Bailey had already unbuckled herself and exited the car and was on her way across the parking lot. So, needless to say, we've had to adapt to the new car seat AND have had numerous conversations with her about the 2 things she can never do in her new car seat. :-)

We went to a friend and co-worker's wedding last weekend. Since we were dressed up, I seized the opportunity to have someone take a picture of all of us. As you can see, Bailey still hasn't quite mastered the "smile on cue" thing in all situations. Oh well, at least we have one recent picture of us together. I almost wish you could pan to the right a tiny bit....you would be able to see the edge of the groom's cake where Bailey took "just a tiny lick, mommy." She did it so quickly that we couldn't stop her. Oh, well!!!